Summertime (Run Away with Me)

aka the penis-warmer fic

A tour is only as fun as the people you're touring with. That's something Kris learns on his first official tour when he gets stuck with a bus full of Idols, half of whom resent him for winning, and the other half just think he's overrated. Matt and Anoop are cool, but they're tight and Kris sometimes feels like a third wheel with them, so he spends most of his summer hanging out with Allison instead, learning the subtle yet important differences between purple, plum, and violet hair dyes.

On his second tour, he has his band to keep him company, and it's fun—like high school all over again. They jam, drink beer, occasionally get high... and just like high school, days bleed into one another, and when Kris comes out the other side, he realizes that he no longer has a girlfriend. Except, it isn't as easy as saying it's over this time. Now that the term is wife instead of girlfriend there are lawyers involved, not to mention the paparazzi and the recording execs; people just won't stop talking. They negotiate things for the two of them without even bothering to consult them first.

Kris goes along with most of it. He doesn't care about the houses, the cars, or the furniture. He just wants the whole thing to be over as quickly as possible, so he signs on all the dotted lines and asks only for the CDs he'd left at the house. Thankfully, Katy's lawyer leaves that at a raised eyebrow and doesn't try to score half of those for his client as well.

Kris gets to headline all his shows on his third tour, and he gets to have Allison as his opening act. He would like to say that it's thanks to his talent finally being recognized, but in truth, it's mostly because of the publicity he got over his divorce and his subsequent coming out. His publicist, who at the time had been foaming at the mouth, now says he couldn't have planned it any better—though he knows better than anyone that there had been no planning involved. Kris hadn't even been sure he was bisexual when the grainy cell phone pictures of his first kiss with a guy had made TMZ. They'd told him he could deny it—they could claim it was a girl, they could say it wasn't Kris—but then if he ever really did come out he would look like a lying ass, so Kris had figured it was better to go with the flow on this one. He'd been pretty sure he was bi anyway.

Headlining or not, Kris expects his third tour to be more of the same—video games and music and alcohol, possibly with added sex of the groupie kind this time. What he doesn't expect is some guy walking up to him three days in and handing him a knit... something.

"I made this for you," the guy says, standing way too close for comfort and looking down at him with a dopey smile. Kris glances at the guy's feet, expecting to see a pair of platform boots, but finds black painted toes peeking from a pair of flip-flops instead. "I'm a big fan," the guy—who apparently really is that tall—says.

Kris takes the offered... thing and looks it over for a second. It's something like a sock but narrower. And it has this... sparkly... head. Kris blinks away the disturbing images. The guy doesn't look all there, granted, but surely he didn't knit Kris a condom. "Thank you," Kris says and tries on a tentative smile.

The guy grins and bounces on the balls of his feet. "Yay."

They stare at each other for a moment and Kris fidgets with the thing in his hand. The guy just keeps grinning. Kris is apparently the only one noticing the awkwardness. Finally, he looks around and says, "You want an autograph or something?"

"Oh!" The guy's eyes shine a brilliant, twinkling blue, and he opens his arms hesitantly. "Can I have a hug?"

Kris shrugs. "Um. Sure."

Three tours in and he still can't say no to fans. It must be some kind of a record. A pair of strong arms wrap around him and pull him close, and Kris braces himself for the smell... that doesn't come. The guy is not completely rank—which is the norm for most people on tour, crew and fans alike—but smells like mothballs and weed and a faint trace of something sweet, flowery. He doesn't hold onto Kris creepily long either; he hugs Kris tight but pulls back before Kris can decide where to put his hands. The beads hanging from the guy's cut-off jeans jingle as he shuffles back.

"Thank you," he says, looking impossibly earnest. "I'm a huge fan. Seriously. Huge."

Then he turns around and skips toward the buses, throwing Kris a small wave over his shoulder.

"Oh. Um." Kris clears his throat. "Don't I get a name?"

The guy turns around, face lit-up like a little kid. "His name's Sparkle!" he says.

Kris watches him walk—walk, skip, dance—all the way to Allison's bus and disappear inside.

Kris doesn't know what to do with Sparkle. He thinks about getting rid of it, but whatever it's supposed to be, it really is handmade, with loose threads here and there and the occasional overlapping rows. Someone actually put some effort into it, and as crazy a gift as it is, Kris can't bring himself to throw it away.

He kind of wishes he had, though, when Cale finds it.

"Some chick knit you a penis warmer?"

"A penis what?" Kris makes himself shut his mouth. Katy used to warn him about how unattractive that made him look. "It was a guy, and that's not a penis anything," he says resolutely.

"A dude knit you a penis warmer? Your fans are getting weirder, man."

"Stop saying penis warmer!" Kris says, grabbing Sparkle to hide it in his guitar case. "It's... it's... like a sock or something."

Cale snorts. "No, it's not."

"Shut up." Kris glares.

The next time Kris runs into the guy with the beads, it's noon, a week or so later, and the sun is shining down mercilessly, intent on leaving no survivors. Kris is hiding behind the bus, lying on a patch of grass with his head pillowed on his rolled up shirt, careful to stay in the shadows.

He has nothing to do until sound-check, so his plan is to stay in that exact spot for the next four hours. Well. Unless the shadows shift. Then he's going to shift with them.

He's humming with his eyes closed when he hears someone running. His first thought is fans, followed closely by paps, so he opens his eyes out of self-preservation, only to find that it's neither. Instead, the bead-guy is looming over him, windmilling his arms to keep from falling on top of him.

Kris recognizes him right away, even without the beads. The guy stands out with his shock of black hair and large blue eyes. The robe he's wearing today doesn't hurt either. It's hot pink with a red flower pattern. Not something you see every day.

"Um. Hi?" Kris offers, shifting uncomfortably and wondering whether he should get up. He really doesn't want to.

"Hello!" the guy says, waving down at Kris. He looks around, a bit nervous, and then says, "Is it okay if I join you?"

Kris shrugs. "Go right ahead." It's not like he owns the grass.

"Thank you!"

Kris tries to avert his eyes as the guy squirms next to him to get comfortable. His robe—his silk robe—parts to reveal hairy legs covered in freckles and blue striped shorts, which even Kris can tell aren't supposed to be worn under pink anything.

"Nice, uh. Nice robe."

The smile that comment earns him is wide enough to almost be scary. "Allison gave it to me." He pulls one side of it up and waves it in a way that makes Kris think he'd be twirling if he could. "And it's a kimono actually. Isn't it cool?"

"Very," Kris says, keeping a straight face. It probably is cool, though Kris wouldn't know. Katy didn't own any kimonos.

They lie next to each other in silence for a moment, but then Kris figures that he should at least find out the guy's name. He clears his throat very unsubtly and says, "I never did get your name."

The answer is paired with yet another happy smile. "Yeah, sorry. I'm Adam."

Adam extends a hand at an awkward angle. His fingernails are painted black and his palm is pleasantly warm against Kris'.

Kris smiles back at him. "I'm Kris, but you know that already."

"I do," Adam says, nodding. "I voted for you, you know."

Kris had heard that a lot the first year. Nowadays though, people tend to forget he ever had to compete to get to where he is. To most people, he's just one of those guys on the radio that came out of nowhere one day. "Not for Allison?" Kris asks, genuinely curious.

"I voted for her as well. But then she got cut, and you were the cutest one left."

He grins impishly, clearly joking. Kris still has to fight down a blush.

"Inevitable," Kris mumbles, "considering my competition."

Adam shudders. "I'm so glad you won."

"So am I, man. So am I."

A soft breeze brushes past them, making Adam's hair and the tails of his robe flutter, and Kris closes his eyes, savoring the feeling. It's so peaceful, so quiet out here. In a matter of hours, he'll be up on a stage, and he'll sing and shout and play until his throat and ears and fingers hurt from it, and he'll love every second of the experience, but for now, this is what he needs. He needs a bit of tranquility. Serenity.

...which he won't be getting, judging by the footsteps approaching.

"Adam!" Allison yells from the other side of the bus. "Adam Lambert, come out this instant."

Adam whimpers and turns around to hide his face in Kris' neck.

Kris stops breathing. Didn't anyone teach this guy about personal space?

"Adam!"

The footsteps come closer and closer until Kris spots the familiar pinkish purple hair of Allison from over Adam's head. "Hey, Allison," Kris mumbles, hands carefully not touching anything but grass. "Um. Adam's not here?" he offers weakly.

"Yeah, I can see that," Allison says with a disapproving frown. "Your mom is on the phone, asshole," she tells Adam, waving her cell phone at him.

Adam shakes his head. "Tell her I'm not here."

Allison puts the phone to her ear. "Leila, he says he's not here."

Adam groans against Kris' neck. His breath hits Kris' skin, hot and tickling. Kris fights down a shiver.

"Your mom says you're an ass, and that she's worried about you."

Adam pulls back at that, leaving Kris cold, and sighs. "I hate you," he tells Allison, grabbing the phone from her hand.

"Aww, I love you too, honey," Allison replies with an exaggerated smile.

Adam's answering glare is both juvenile and deadly. "Mom," he whines into the phone, sliding firmly into complete immaturity. "I told you to stop calling me!"

Adam gets up and starts walking back to where he came from. Allison shakes her head and follows him.

Kris stays where he is until it's time for sound-check. Adam doesn't come back.

Not that Kris has been waiting or anything.

It's the middle of June and they're playing a smallish venue in a city whose name may or may not start with an L, and the lake right next to the place breaks the monotony of the usual concrete and grass scenery. Spending half the year in L.A. and the other half in a bus is making Kris miss stuff he used to take for granted, like camping trips and fishing.

He figures that probably means he's getting old. His dad would laugh his ass off if he heard.

It's never easy to calm down and fall asleep after a good show, no matter how exhausted you are, so that night when Andrew starts a bonfire, almost everyone shows up to sit around it. There's music, of course, since half of them live attached to some sort of instrument, and a couple of the guys start singing softly. It seems like everyone has been waiting for this opportunity, because in a matter of minutes, there's booze and marshmallows and people pairing up to dance... and it's nice. It's fun.

Kris feels boneless: with the rush of the performance, the warmth of friends, the buzz of alcohol... He lies down on the damp ground and stares up at the stars, wondering at how small he is, how insignificant, and how content he is with that. He never did want to be the biggest star.

"I wouldn't say insignificant," Tommy pipes in, plopping down next to him. "You're pretty significant to some people."

Kris can never quite tell if Tommy's tone is friendly or snide. He has known Tommy for a couple of years now, since Tommy started playing for Allison, and he's a nice enough guy, but for some reason he's infinitely enigmatic to Kris. So Kris sits up to acknowledge the conversation—it would be rude not to—but chooses not to reply.

"I'm just saying..." Tommy says, nudging him with a bony shoulder. "Adam would argue otherwise."

Kris looks up and sure enough, there Adam is, sitting right across from them on the other side of the fire. He's smiling wide at something Allison is saying, looking completely absurd with green yarn looped around his neck, a knitting needle in each hand.

Kris tries to think of something to say, but comes up empty again. "That's nice," he says just to have said something, and when Tommy snorts and gets up, he decides not to take it seriously. He's too old for these high school 'check yes or no' games anyway.

Kris stays up until 3 AM and spends most of that time watching Allison correct Adam's knitting. Adam is trying to knit a green scarf as far as Kris can tell, and that should be simple enough, shouldn't it? Just straight rows, nothing fancy. Kris has seen his mother knit similar things a thousand times. But Allison makes Adam go back and fix stuff at least four times, and even though Adam huffs and acts all irritated every time, he also ignores everything going on around him and focuses on his work with single-minded determination.

Kris watches him take a sip from a bottle of whiskey and then squint at the yarn in the dark and thinks he should go say hi. Not because of Tommy's mysterious matchmaking ways, but because—because Adam is nice.

Yes, that's what he should do. He nods in agreement with himself and then falls asleep.

Instead of asking Allison, or Adam, or even Tommy, like a normal person would, Kris chooses to watch them from afar to try and figure out what the hell Adam is doing on tour with them. From what Kris has managed to gather so far, Adam's role in the band is: (a) knitting them misshapen scarves in the middle of summer, (b) fooling around with Tommy's guitar, which he can't play, (c) eating all of the marshmallows in sight, (d) giving Allison and Tommy makeovers, and (e) making people laugh.

They do seem to be having a lot of fun. It's hard not to have fun with Allison, that much Kris knows—though Danny had managed at times—but Kris had never seen Tommy smile so genuinely and laugh so loud before. It's not that Kris' band isn't awesome as well, they are, but half of them now have significant others waiting for them at home (Cale even has a baby), so they don't quite embrace the tour spirit with the abandon they used to. Tour is not the same, Kris notes, when you have plans for what comes after it.

Watching Allison's band makes Kris feel like a grown-up.

When Kris finally manages to get a crumb of information on Adam, it's a free afternoon and everyone's camped out at an empty field: some sleeping, some eating, and Allison and a couple of her guys singing under a tree.

"Fuck off, I'm not singing," Allison says. "My throat fucking hurts from wailing for hours last night."

"That sounds dirty," Tommy says, snickering.

"Your mama sounds dirty," Allison informs him. "Where the hell is Adam?" she asks. "Make him sing."

"Adam sings?" Kris asks, carefully focused on his sandwich. Tommy will give him stupid looks for this, but whatever. It's not an odd question to ask.

"Dude, yeah," Allison says. "We met on Idol. He's crazy good."

"Huh," Kris says. "Did he make it to Hollywood? I don't remember him."

Allison rolls her eyes. "They shipped him off the first day," she grumbles. "Simon kept going on and on about how theatrical he was."

Tommy snorts. "That's TV-speak for too gay."

"Oh." Kris bites into his sandwich, not really tasting anything. How did he manage to miss Adam? Kris would have remembered if he'd seen him. Adam is not the kind of guy one forgets easily. But then again, Kris had been in a daze that first day and there had been over a hundred people. "That sucks."

Tommy throws him a mocking look.

"He's good, you know," Allison says. "He would have wiped the floor with all of us."

"Hmm," Kris says noncommittally and lets the conversation move away from the topic. Tommy keeps giving him disdainful and/or teasing looks all night. Kris ignores him with practiced ease.

The next time Kris gets a chance to speak with Adam, the whole gang is at a bar, being loud and getting drunk. Kris follows Adam with his eyes all night, not sure if he wants to get him alone or just observe, but when Adam slips through the back door, Kris finds himself on his feet, and that answers that question.

Adam is sitting at the curb when Kris makes it outside, and he's on the phone. Kris lingers, shuffling back and forth, debating whether he should intrude, but then Adam spots him and beckons him with a smile.

"Now seriously, mom, that's just ridiculous," he's saying when Kris sits next to him—after a silent debate over just how close would be too close. "Yeah, yeah," Adam drawls, rolling his eyes, "I'll tell him to run and hide from me, don't worry."

Adam's wardrobe is... interesting. Half the time, he seems too high to dress himself, which ends with him in pink robes and Tommy's too-tight yoga pants. But then once in a while, on completely random occasions, Kris catches him dressed properly, make-up and hair and everything done with precision, and he looks like an entirely different person. The kind of person that's so well put together that Kris feels inadequate just being in his presence.

And it's not just the wardrobe either.

At first Kris had thought of it as a wave, two personalities of Adam coming and going, but the more he'd watched Adam, the more he'd realized that it's actually just the one personality, rising and sinking in a sea of nonchalance.

Adam is hiding.

He's not an addict, unless you count the knitting, but he's almost always high or tipsy when Kris sees him. Kris is smitten with him when he's high and ridiculous, he's man enough to admit it, but what keeps him watching is the sober Adam peeking through. Sober Adam has sharp eyes that miss nothing, and as lovely as the robe-wearing, condom-knitting, soft and malleable version of the guy is, Kris finds that he wants to peel off his layers one by one until he gets to the core. Adam seems to have designed this façade not to be taken seriously, even by himself, while Kris is sure the person hiding behind it would demand attention.

He could be making it all up. Maybe this is all there is to him, what you see is what you get, but it's not like Kris is hurting for time here. He can afford to dig a little deeper and see where it leads him.

"Your mom's worried?" he says, watching Adam put his phone away. "You talk to her a lot."

"She's worried about you." Adam smirks.

"Me?"

"She thinks I corrupted you," Adam says, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his cheek on them.

"Corrupted me... how?" Kris' heart beats madly in his chest at the thought of Adam's mom thinking they're having sex. Does she talk to Tommy or something?

"It's stupid," Adam says, shrugging. "I... You know how I said I voted for you?"

Kris nods.

"I voted a lot. And I kinda made everyone else vote, too. I might've been a sort of crazy stalker fan."

"Oh," Kris says, flattered and confused. "And the corrupting?"

"Well. When you came out, I might've thrown a party?"

Kris snorts, incredulous.

"Just a small one," Adam whines. "And I swear it was not because I finally had a shot or anything. It just felt—" He sighs. "Simon was an ass to me, you know. And the only reason I got cut was that no matter how much I tried to tone it down, I stood out as different. And you—you were the unassuming boy-next-door from Arkansas. Just imagining his face when you came out..."

Kris snorts at the mental image. He's almost sorry he missed it himself.

"So yeah," Adam says, making a face. "Now my mom thinks I somehow voodooed you gay from afar, or that I'd met you before or something, I don't know. She probably thinks we're fucking like bunnies."

Kris is not sure if that's better or worse than Tommy talking to her about his theories.

"I bet she thinks I'm the fluffy innocent bunny."

Adam smiles. "You are the fluffy innocent bunny," he informs Kris.

They smile at each other and just sit there in companionable silence. Kris has drunk just enough gin to make everything slightly fuzzy around the edges. Unsurprisingly, Adam looks great with fuzzy edges.

"So," Kris says finally, "why are you on tour with us? Being a crazy stalker fan again?"

Adam shakes his head. "It's not about you, I swear. This one's all on me," he says. "My Journey of Self-Discovery."

Kris hears the capitals loud and clear. "Aren't you a little old for that?" Kris asks.

"You know what," Adam says, looking very earnest, "I think these things have an expiration date. You have to, like, rediscover yourself every ten years or so."

Kris hmms sympathetically but thinks it's worrying that Adam seems to be losing himself at regular intervals.

Adam grins self-deprecatingly and shrugs. "Also, I had nothing better to do," he admits.

"Right." Kris nods. That explains some things.

On every tour, Kris manages to accumulate so many new t-shirts that when it's time to go back home, he has three times as many bags as he started with.

It's not because he's a t-shirt addict—he honestly doesn't care all that much about clothes—it's just that he doesn't like walking around sweaty, and when you're on the road and changing at least three times a day, keeping up with the laundry becomes an impossibility.

Their first day in Arizona, after sound-check, Kris peels off his soaked Beatles t-shirt, makes Ryland hose him down, and then realizes too late that he's fallen behind on his shopping. He has shirts, many, many (mostly plaid) shirts, but there's no way in hell he'll survive this heat wearing one of those, so he digs deeper and deeper—until he hits the bottom and finds the one clean t-shirt he has left. One he hasn't worn since high school, in fact. It's a faded red color, has a Superman logo on the front, and it's way too tight across the chest.

Kris tries moving and yeah, the seams are definitely going to give.

He has to do a convulsive sort of dance and jump around a bit to get out of it. Once he's free, he considers his options; ask one of the guys to lend him something or hit the merch stand. Since Kris knows how the other guys have been smelling lately, he decides to go with option number two.

There are just a couple of places the merch guy—Jones or James or something—could be. They're in Nowhere, Arizona; there are just a couple of places for anyone to be. Kris checks the merch stand and finds it empty. It was a long shot anyway; it's too early to set it up. Then he heads for Allison's bus. He thinks Jones is dating Allison's drummer. He's been seeing him around her lately.

Unfortunately for him, the bus door is open and there's no one inside. "Hellooo," Kris calls, looking around. The place is a mess, though it's probably an orderly chaos that only the inhabitants of this moving crazy-house can make sense of. At least that's how it works for his band. He always knows the TV remote will be under the table, and the pizza box is full of weed. It just works somehow.

Since Kris' bus is female-free, the bras hanging from various knobs here are new to him, and his guys certainly don't own anything as sparkly as the dress lying balled up on this couch. But the feel of the place—the junk food, video games, DVDs, guitars, clothes... yeah, it's basically the same.

"Kristopher Allen," a drawling voice says, "please tell me you're here for me."

Kris looks toward the door and finds Adam leaning against it. "Ah, I'm afraid not," he says. "I was looking for Jones?"

Adam pouts. "Jones? Who's Jones?"

"The merch guy?"

Adam rolls his eyes. "You mean Jess. Sorry to tell you, but you're not his type."

"What? No," Kris splutters. "I need a t-shirt. I'm all out."

Adam slinks closer—he's really good at that; it seems to come naturally to him—until he's crowding Kris against the TV. "I think I like you better without," he says, resting his palms on Kris' naked abdomen.

Kris inhales sharply, his heart hiccupping twice in a row. "I can't just walk around half-naked to please you," he manages to breathe out.

Adam's hands are gentle, barely there on Kris' skin; they don't even tickle as they travel up to his chest. "Unfair."

Adam leans in, bending down until his lips are a hair's breadth away from Kris', and Kris is arching up before he knows what he's doing, pushing into Adam's hands—but then he smells the alcohol in Adam's breath and comes back down to Earth.

They shouldn't be doing this while Adam's hiding behind a bottle.

He jerks his head back. "Not when you're drunk," he says, cupping Adam's cheek belatedly to soften the blow.

"I only had one beer," Adam whines, but he doesn't try and stop Kris when he dives past him.

"And a little bit of weed?" Kris guesses, walking backwards and smiling.

Adam makes a face but doesn't say no. "You're no fun."

"I'll see you later," Kris tells him, ducking out of the bus before he can change his mind.

Kris has walked halfway to his own bus, his skin feeling way too tight, when Adam's brain seems to catch up.

"Does that mean you'll kiss me when I'm sober?" he yells after Kris.

Kris grins and keeps walking.

To Kris' dismay, Adam doesn't corner him to claim his kiss.

Kris knows Adam is not the mindless flake he's letting people think he is, so he doesn't believe for a second that Adam changed his mind or just forgot. With the way Adam keeps carefully away from him though, he knows there has to be something holding him back. He just doesn't know how to make Adam talk about it, and to be honest, some days he thinks himself a fool for assuming he can magically solve Adam's problems. He can't help it though. He wants to try.

A week goes by without much more than passing glances and polite smiles, and Kris starts to think that maybe he should just let Adam keep his distance. There's no point in pushing if Adam needs space. But then one hotel night, he hears music coming from a room down the hall and finds Adam singing, and suddenly all thoughts of letting Adam get away with hiding fly away like frightened birds.

Adam isn't just good; he is gifted. Special, like one of Kris' heroes. Like Michael Jackson. Paul McCartney. Freddie Mercury. Music and words pour out of him, easy as breathing, no effort, no showing off, and Kris' heart soars with excitement he hasn't felt since releasing his first album.

The door is propped open with a guitar case, so Kris walks in without a sound and takes a seat on the floor in front of the bed—where Adam is perched on the edge and Tommy's sitting cross-legged with his guitar in his lap. Tommy gives him an unimpressed look, but as far as Kris can tell, Adam doesn't notice him. He doesn't open his eyes until the end of the song, lost in his own world, giving Kris plenty of time to study his face, his hands, his half-braided hair with newly-dyed blue tips.

As the last note dies, a wide smile stretches Adam's lips, and his eyes blink open, clear blue and shining. Kris finds himself catching his breath.

"Hi," Adam says, sounding genuinely pleased to see him.

"That was amazing."

"Yeah, I love that song," Adam says. "Pink is awesome."

"No, seriously, you're awesome," Kris corrects him. Because he's heard that song from Pink and it didn't sound half as good.

"No, seriously," Tommy intones, "you guys are sickening."

"Don't be jealous," Adam tells him, messing up his hair. "You're pretty awesome yourself. Isn't he, Kristopher?"

Kris smirks at Tommy's bitch-face. "Yeah, and he's adorable, too. Such a charmer."

Tommy slaps Adam's hand away. "Get out of here. Go flirt somewhere else. I need my beauty sleep."

Adam looks to Kris, a little hesitant; Kris grabs his hand and drags him out of the room. He has a perfectly good room down the hall where they can flirt to their heart's content after all.

Adam paces the room, hiding behind the pretense of snooping through Kris' stuff, which is really weak since there really is no stuff there. It's a generic hotel room and they're only staying for the night; all Kris brought with him was a change of clothes.

"Not even shampoo? Seriously?" Adam says, coming out of the bathroom with huge, unbelieving eyes.

"I don't really have all that much hair," Kris explains, leaning back and relaxing against the headboard.

"With this attitude, you'll lose whatever you have as well!" Adam throws his hands up.

Kris snickers.

"Come sit," he says, patting the bed. "Come on. Tell me some more about the importance of proper hair care."

Adam kicks his shoes off and climbs onto the bed. "If this is your seduction technique, Kristopher, it needs a lot of work."

Kris grins. "I'm not trying to seduce you."

Adam gives him a coy look. "Why not?"

"Because," Kris says, pulling him closer and wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "That's not what happens now."

"Oh, yeah?" Adam turns his head to look at Kris, his face too close, his eyes narrowed mischievously. Kris loves it. He doesn't want to let Adam move ever again. "What does happen now?"

"Now we talk," Kris says with a decisive nod. "You tell me about yourself. Where you're from. What you do. Why your mom is so worried."

Adam groans.

"Besides," Kris says. "I get the feeling that we're way past the seduction part by now."

"True," Adam grants him. "You managed that with Ain't No Sunshine three years ago."

Kris puts a hand on his own stomach to keep the butterflies in check and settles in to listen.

"Why do we have to talk about me all the time?" Adam whines, burying his face in the pillow under Kris' arm.

"It's only fair," Kris tells him. "You already know all about me thanks to your creepy stalking ways."

Adam glares at him. "Fine," he says. "But I already told you all the good parts; it's boring after that. I mean, my twenties were way more fun, trust me."

Kris prods his side with a finger. "Tell me." It's been interesting finding out about Adam's family and first love and all his crazy adventures, but what he really wants to know is what happened to make him want to rediscover himself. That's the puzzle he's been trying to solve.

"Okay," Adam says, squirming a little to get comfortable. "It was... the combination of a lot of things. I mean, I'd been really unhappy with my job. You can only be an understudy for so long. You pay your dues, but then you expect them to see that you're capable of more at some point, you know?" He shakes his head, shrugs. "But they didn't, and that pissed me off. And when I'm pissed off, I tend to let people know."

Kris chuckles. He has a feeling that letting them know is a bit of an understatement.

"I did deserve to get fired," Adam says. He doesn't sound apologetic or sad about it. Maybe a touch amused. "My work ethic was non-existent by that point, and I'd started taking crappy gigs at crappy clubs, going to work hung-over, sleepless, dead on my feet. And when they said that's it, you're out, I said fuck 'em all and focused on everything else I had going on instead of looking for a real job."

He pauses, turns his head to the side and takes a deep breath, like he's smelling Kris, and then says, "That was my first mistake."

"Why?"

Adam smirks. "Well, for one thing, when I say crappy gigs, I mean crappy gigs. The I-wasn't-dressed-for-some-of-them kind of crappy gigs."

"You did not—"

"Oh, yeah, I did," Adam nods. "I danced, I stripped, I sang. It was one long, craptastic party."

"And?" Kris prods. "What made you stop?"

"Mistake number two," Adam announces bitterly. "My ex."

"Oh," Kris says, "guy troubles."

"For some reason, at the time, I thought he'd make everything better." Adam sits up a little bit, just enough to be able to look into Kris' eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I don't normally do that. I don't need anyone to be my knight in shining armor. But everything was going wrong, you know? I'd had plans, and no matter how many setbacks I encountered, I was always like, it'll happen, you know? If I stick with it, it will happen. It had to. There was no other way."

"And then it didn't."

"Yeah," Adam says with feeling. "And then I woke up one day and realized, fuck, I'm too old. No one will sign on some old queen. I'm done."

"You're not old," Kris butts in, indignant on Adam's behalf. Adam can't be older than thirty, and God knows that most days Kris wouldn't even call him mature.

"Shush," Adam says. "I'm telling the story."

"Okay. Sorry. Carry on, please."

"Anyway, so I guess when everything else went to shit, I thought that at least my love life was going well. Riley and I, we had a nice thing going, great apartment, wonderful friends, parties, good sex... it was wonderful. I even thought that maybe it could be for good, you know?"

Kris swallows down the completely irrational jealousy and nods.

"And then he dumped me," Adam says.

Kris waits for him to continue, but that seems to be the rather anticlimactic ending to Adam's story.

"And?"

"And nothing," Adam says. "That's it. He just dumped me. He said we weren't going in the same direction, I wasn't who he'd started dating, blah blah blah, then it got all ugly and we called each other names... and then he moved out."

"Okay," Kris says, rubbing Adam's arm. Adam's time off from life makes more sense to him now, but it's also becoming clear that Adam really doesn't need Kris to save him from anything. He's just taking his time to heal, and there's nothing anyone can do to speed that up.

Adam yawns. "And then I had to move, too, of course. I couldn't afford the place on my own. So I packed my shit, dropped it all at my mom's, sold the furniture, and camped out on Allison's couch for a couple of weeks. And when she asked if I wanted to tag along with her on tour, I thought why the hell not. It wasn't like I had anything better to do."

"And here you are."

"And here I am," Adam agrees.

They stare at each other, faces too close but still somehow not uncomfortable, until Adam snuggles in closer and says, "And there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

That's when Cale comes in.

"Um. Am I interrupting something?" he asks, hand frozen on the doorknob.

Adam moves to sit up, but Kris tightens his hold to keep him where he is. "Nope, we're just talking."

Cale's eyes move from Kris to Adam back to Kris. "Talking. In bed."

"Yup," Kris says. "Talking in bed."

"Ooo-kay." Cale takes half a step and then stops again. "Do you want me to get lost? I can probably find somewhere else to crash."

Kris rolls his eyes. "Dude, seriously. Chill out. Come in. Go to bed. Do whatever it is you wanna do. We're just talking."

"All right, if you're sure," Cale says warily, giving them a wide berth as he makes his way to his bag.

Once Cale's in the bathroom and the shower has started, Adam tries once again to sit upright. "I should go."

Kris' hand tightens reflexively. "Stay."

Adam gives him a dubious look. "Stay the night?"

Kris shrugs. "Yeah. Why not?"

"Well. For one thing, Cale might have a heart attack."

"He can deal with it. Stay."

Adam stares at him searchingly and Kris stares back, determined. "Okay," Adam says finally, settling back in. "Cool. Slumber party."

Adam is already wearing some sort of stretchy sweat pants—as pajamas or regular pants, Kris can't really tell—and Kris only takes off his jeans, keeping his t-shirt, not out of shyness but so he won't freak Cale out completely when he comes back in.

Cale still looks pretty freaked.

"Hands where I can see them," he says gruffly.

Adam, almost asleep, giggles. "This is just like high school." He takes his hands out from under the covers and gives Cale a wave.

Cale doesn't look amused. "I'm turning off the lights. If I hear anything from that side of the room, I'm pulling the fire alarm. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Good night, Cale," Kris says pointedly.

Cale grumbles an incomprehensible reply.

A couple of minutes pass in complete silence and Kris relaxes, enjoying the warmth of the body against him. He likes the way Adam smells. Always so sweet and real—not too clean, but not dirty either. He can get used to this.

He's about to fall asleep when Adam says, "Cale?"

"What?"

"Is it okay if I kiss him good night?"

Cale groans and covers his head with his pillow. "I hate you both," comes his muffled reply.

"That means yes, right?" Adam says to Kris, propping himself up on an elbow.

"Yeah," Kris says, pulling him down to meet his lips. "He definitely means yes."

Whether they acknowledge it or not, that night proves to be a bit of a milestone.

From then on, Adam limits alcohol to the occasions when everyone is drinking, and he starts knitting a pink sweater for Kris.

("If that doesn't mean true love, I don't know what does," Tommy comments.

For once, Kris decides to take him at face value.)

Kris, on the other hand, starts writing again.

Cale gives him long-suffering looks for playing his half-written sappy love songs at all hours but doesn't make him stop, which, for him, is as good as giving his blessing. The other guys take turns sitting with him at night, making encouraging noises as he works, and they make sure he gets to bed some time before dawn.

Kris thinks they're all getting soft in their old age, but at times like this, when he's half in love and inspired, he finds that he doesn't really mind it as much as he thinks he should.

What doesn't happen—and Kris feels naturally should have by this point—is sex.

He and Adam... they hang out.

When everyone gets together to shoot the shit, or sing, or eat, Adam always ends up next to Kris: arm wrapped around him, snuggled close, or lying down with his head in Kris' lap. And on those rare occasions when they get to stay at a hotel, Adam doesn't even ask whether he should crash with Tommy or one of the girls. It's not like they do anything, they mostly just talk, and snuggle, and have tickle fights, but they always share a room, just the two of them.

Allison doesn't seem too heartbroken at being abandoned by Adam—in fact, she doesn't even bat an eye, which makes Kris suspect that she and Adam must have had a talk—and Kris' guys get used to Adam's presence faster than Kris would have expected. They're cool guys, Kris never thought that any one of them would be an ass about it, but with the way Adam attaches himself to Kris at every opportunity, he's surprised that none of them has even asked.

And that's just it, there's a lot of touching, which, okay, Kris loves, but he'd have thought Adam would kick it up a notch, at least mix it up with some kissing at this point. Kris had been prepared to magnanimously say yeah, sure, let's make out all over the place like teenagers, but Adam doesn't even hint at it. The good night kisses are traditional by now, but they're very chaste, very PG, and it's... confusing.

Kris knows he should probably leave that alone, stop poking at it, but his mind goes round and round in circles trying to find an answer, a reason, and always comes up short.

It couldn't be lack of interest; that would make no sense. Adam is attracted to Kris; he never hid that. And he certainly isn't one to lie about these things. Kris has never seen him be less than perfectly honest with anyone. He has, at times, wished that Adam would be less honest, but no luck so far.

It could be because they have no privacy. Kris shares his bus with his band and Adam with Allison's, and bunks are hardly made for that kind of activity anyway. That would certainly be a valid reason, but honestly, Kris highly doubts that's it. There's an exhibitionist streak in Adam a mile wide. He would not mind making out with Kris in front of everyone, Kris is sure of that.

Maybe it's even simpler than that. Maybe Adam holds back because that's what he needs right now. This is the theory Kris likes the best. Adam needs someone to be there, be supportive, be loving. He doesn't need anything complicated, and he doesn't need for it to become intense.

If that's the case, the last thing Kris should do right now is to push anything more on him.

With that in mind, Kris pours his frustration into his performances and enjoys his relationship with Adam for what it is.

Because what it is, is beautiful.

It's friendship, and warmth, and affection. It's butterflies in Kris' stomach, love songs on the tip of his tongue. It's snuggling under a tree and talking for hours and hours. It's a crush, teetering on the edge of something more.

It's strange and unusual and completely stunning. Just like Adam himself.

One day, Kris wakes up in his tiny uncomfortable bunk and realizes that it's been more than a month since they had their first kiss, and even with no sex, no making out, no promises, it's enough. It's more than enough; Kris doesn't remember a time when he's been happier. Every moment they spend together is breathtakingly joyous and precious and priceless, and he doesn't want it to ever end.

The only thing that's making him pause is the fact that he can't see where to go from here.

Kris hasn't had a lot of girlfriends and certainly not enough boyfriends, but he was married once, and he knows enough about the life cycle of relationships to know that you don't just keep a relationship in limbo. If you want it to work, you take it forward, one step at a time.

But then again, this is so far out of the sex/marriage/kids cycle of a normal relationship, Kris doesn't know if it's a fair comparison.

Afraid of doing the wrong thing, Kris does his best to ignore his worries and does nothing to change the status quo. Instead he sings, and he writes songs about it, and he holds onto Adam when they're together.

Adam doesn't seem to be bothered by the uncertainty of their situation. Actually, as Kris had guessed, he seems to prefer it that way.

"Kris, come here," he says one morning, pulling Kris down to sit next to him, facing five curious faces around the rickety old lunch table they acquired from God knows where. "Tell these assholes that we're not Romeo and Juliet."

"Julius," Allison corrects him. "I said Romeo and Julius."

Kris ignores her and stares at Adam, probably a bit like a small, helpless animal caught in a snare. "Um. What?"

Adam, appearing completely unaware of Kris' panic, wraps an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer. "Can't we just be in like with each other without it turning into a scandalous love affair?" he asks the table in general. "I mean, does everything have to be so serious?" Kris watches Adam's free hand fly around as his own stomach sinks heavily. "It's summer. We're on tour. I refuse to be serious."

He turns to face Kris and Kris finds himself hoping that his face isn't half as flushed as it feels like. "Be my summer fling, Kristopher," he says, giving Kris his signature solemn look that never fails to make Kris want to kiss him.

Kris smiles despite himself. "If I knew you were going to propose I'd have worn a better shirt," he says, looking pointedly down at his battered Michael Jackson t-shirt as the others snicker at them. "I sure hope the ring matches this old thing."

"Oh." Adam pats his nonexistent pockets, eyes open wide—is he for real? Kris can't tell sometimes—until his hand lands on his own chest and his face lights up. "Here," he says, unhooking a chain from around his neck and holding it out to Kris. "Will this do?"

There's a tiny plastic chicken drumstick hanging from the chain. It has a face, and it's smiling.

Kris grins, shakes his head. "Now I know we're meant to be," he says, only half joking.

Adam puts it on him with a flourish, and then snuggles close, giving Allison a look that says, there.

Allison rolls her eyes at them, lips quirked up.

His heart feeling much lighter all of a sudden, Kris shrugs.

A summer fling is not so bad, Kris decides later on. It's not that Adam doesn't take this—them—seriously, it's just that he doesn't want to put a name on a relationship when his own life is in shambles. That's perfectly understandable. Kris gets it. He wants Adam to feel better, to get better, not push aside his own wellbeing to focus on someone else.

This doesn't mean that there will never be another step to take for the two of them; it doesn't mean it'll have to end with summer. It means that they're different. Not your average couple. And how is that even surprising at this point?

Kris chooses to ignore Allison's worried looks. She means well, he knows that, but she doesn't understand—and that's just fine. No one else needs to understand, after all. He understands. When the time comes, he's sure he'll know, and he'll pull Adam just that bit closer.

He's not in a hurry. He can wait.

When the next logical step finally comes to Kris and hits him over the head with its perfection, it's in a completely different direction than he would have expected, but it's also so right that he wants to weep with joy.

It's a show night and he's on stage, dripping sweat and high on the music. He spots Adam standing just inside the security line, bobbing his head to the rhythm with a soft smile on his face. Kris takes the sight in and thinks, what could possibly be any better?

"I want you guys to meet a friend of mine," he finds himself saying before he can even figure out how to go about it. "His name is Adam, and he's amazing."

Adam is staring at him with huge eyes, shaking his head.

Kris nods. "Yes. Come on up here, Adam."

Jared from security gives Adam a boost and suddenly Adam is up on the stage, standing next to him.

And it feels right—like Cale playing behind him, like the guitar in his arms; Adam belongs there. Another piece of the puzzle falling flawlessly into place.

Kris holds Adam's hand to pull him closer and then conveniently forgets to let go of him. Adam is a little flustered at first, but he was made to be on stage, made to entertain, made to sing, so it doesn't take long for him to relax and start enjoying himself.

They sing three songs together, heads bowed over the same microphone, and of course Adam charms the pants off of all Kris' fans. By the time they need to close the show, Kris has to pry Adam off the stage.

It's the best show Kris has done in a long, long time.

"There will be pictures," Adam says afterwards.

"Yeah, so?" Kris shrugs. "There have been pictures before."

Adam had been the one to show them to Kris, the fan pictures of the two of them sitting wrapped around each other and the speculation over who Adam might be. Kris had surprised himself by how much he hadn't cared.

"This is way more serious and you know it. These will be on TMZ. Perez Hilton. Everywhere."

Kris stops toweling his hair. "Would you mind if there were..." Because it's really damn selfish of him to assume this is all about Kris Allen.

But Adam looks at him like he's grown a second head. "No one cares about me. This is about you—"

"I don't mind," Kris says.

Adam pauses, stares at him suspiciously. After a beat, "Okay," he says. "If you don't mind, I don't mind."

Kris grins. "You wanna do that every night?"

Adam gapes at him. "You're kidding me, right?"

That's also exactly what the studio says when they realize Kris is letting some stranger sing with him every night.

"You're kidding, right?"

When Kris stands his ground, they cave—they always do—and send papers for Adam to sign. Lots and lots of papers.

"I think it's so you won't ask to be paid afterwards," Kris says, trying to make sense of the tiny print. He gives up a couple paragraphs in and puts the pages down. "You know what that means? We can probably negotiate and get them to actually pay you."

Adam shakes his head resolutely. He pulls the papers closer and starts signing.

"If there's one thing this summer isn't about," he says, "it's money."

Kris lets him sign them and doesn't insist.

Katy liked romance. She liked candle-lit dinners, surprises, gifts. Kris had been too young—and too much of a boy—to get what she wanted at first, so she'd taught him with little nudges and hints along the way. It had been a long and arduous journey for them both, but they'd gotten it right in the end.

With Adam, Kris finds himself at a loss again. They're officially a not-serious-fling, so he doesn't know how much he's allowed to do. And besides, the general atmosphere of the tour is so relaxed that most romantic gestures would seem like overkill. Kris chooses to go with understated things, like getting Adam a cup when he finds good coffee, giving him backrubs—over clothes and in public, but still—and picking out the prettier gifts the fans give him every night and offering them to Adam. It's all a bit too desperate, to be honest, but Adam doesn't seem to notice.

"It's so pretty. Isn't it pretty?" Adam says, holding his hand up to check out the bracelet around his wrist. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

"Nah," Kris says, nuzzling Adam's hair. "Looks better on you."

Adam turns around so Kris can see his face, beaming.

It's something like 4 AM, and they're lying on a small patch of grass by the side of the parking lot. The streetlight nearest them is out—though it's still not dark enough to let them see the stars—and all they can hear are the sounds of the freeway not too far away. It's probably the least romantic place ever, but it works for them.

Adam brought a pillow, so they're pretty comfortable, and it's nice and cool out here, much better than the stifling air inside the buses. Kris leans closer and nuzzles where Adam's t-shirt meets his neck, and he inhales, taking in the familiar scent of Adam, mixed with grass and earth now. He tightens his arms and pulls Adam closer.

Sometimes, it's easy to believe that they can go on exactly like this.

"Did I tell you what happened to the bunny?"

Adam, with his shunning of all things real world, is certainly not helping.

"Last I heard, he was lost in the forest," Kris says.

The runaway bunny is a character in a children's book Adam had found in a venue three cities back. Adam has been reading it to Kris on and off. He seems fascinated with the bunny's adventures, especially with the friends he makes along the way; Kris, if he's perfectly honest, is more enamored with the way Adam does the voices.

"Oh, that was, like, twenty pages ago! Where have you been?"

Adam tells him about the enchanted trees the bunny's been hanging out with and the nervous squirrel who thinks the bunny's after his chestnut stash.

Kris hmms in all the right places, registering only half the words.

They watch the sunrise together.

Music has always been a third party in Kris' relationships. Romanticized by some, ignored or resented by others. It had been one of the reasons he kept going back to Katy again and again; she had understood his connection to it, accepted and loved it as a part of him. In the end, it had also been the harbinger of doom for them. Katy had stopped listening, stopped caring about the music, and though she had clung a little longer to the rest of him, Kris had known then that they were on borrowed time.

Adam doesn't just understand, or accept, or love Kris' music; he feeds on it.

Kris never feels like there's a third entity between them. When he and Adam make music, it feels like making love—like becoming one, moving together, sharing the same feeling. It's not completely new; Kris has felt that before, while playing with other musicians, with his band, but it's so much simpler with them, cleaner—not laced with this heady mixture of attraction, lust, and love.

With Adam, it's addictive.

It makes Kris wonder how it would feel to have sex with Adam while singing with him.

"Something in the way she moves,"

When he's exhausted, Kris tends to default back to his favorite Beatles songs. They're uncomplicated, comforting melodies his fingers have known how to pluck from the strings since he was thirteen.

"Attracts me like no other lover,"

With years of memories associated with them, they feel like home to Kris.

"Something in the way she woos me,

I don't want to leave her now,

You know I believe and how..."

The bus is empty tonight, everyone out partying, though God knows what would pass for a party in this tiny town. He and Adam stayed back, Adam claiming that he's at a very critical point with the pink sweater, though it was obvious that he was only lying to spare Kris. Kris is bone tired. He's hit that stage of touring where he would kill for his own bed. No matter how ridiculously young Adam makes him feel, he's no longer a teenager and his body knows it.

He realizes belatedly that he finished the song while lost in thought. His fingers are now dutifully resting on the strings, waiting for him to start another one, and Adam is staring at him with a fond but secretive smile.

"What?" Kris says, raising an eyebrow.

Adam shrugs. "Nothing."

Kris makes a dubious noise.

"It's just..." Adam shrugs again, as if saying no big deal. "You always say she."

"Huh?"

"When you sing. You're always singing to girls," Adam clarifies.

"Oh." That had never occurred to Kris. He's used to singing that way. And those are the lyrics. He never thought to change them.

"Not like you shouldn't," Adam says. "I just notice because I always change the pronoun when I sing."

Kris had noticed that... as an unimportant detail that did not relate to him.

Kris never denies being slow.

"I guess... because it's new? I don't know. I never thought about it."

Adam doesn't seem offended. He looks curious. "You think about girls when you sing?"

"What? No."

Adam makes a slightly flaily that's not what I meant gesture with one hand. "Not girls girls, just a girl-shaped person. I always think about a guy-shaped person. But I'm gay, so that's inevitable."

Kris considers this carefully. All he remembers thinking about when he sings lately is Adam. Which is probably because they sing together. And when they're not singing together, Adam is usually watching from the first row, so it's not like Kris ever focuses on anyone else. "No," he says finally. "I don't think about girls." It's not a lie. He doesn't think about girls. He doesn't think about guys either, but Adam doesn't need to know that.

"Ever think about me?" Adam asks, looking from under his lashes coyly.

Kris hopes he's winning the fight against his rising blush. "You're fishing."

Adam puts aside the sweater and moves down from the couch to sit on the floor next to Kris. "So?" he says, arranging their bodies so he's as close as he can get without actually sitting in Kris' lap. "What if I am?"

Kris licks his lips. He can't just... say that. "I'm not telling you."

Adam's smile widens. He knows, Kris thinks. There's no way he doesn't know how far gone Kris is. But Adam seems to choose not to embarrass him. He scoots even closer—like there's any space left—and tucks his face into Kris' neck.

"Then I'm afraid you're gonna have to sing me a lullaby now," he says.

Kris snorts. Of course. Snuggling, bedtime stories, and now lullabies. In a couple of months, they'll be just about ready for the next big event: pigtail pulling.

Not that Kris would change any of it for the world.

Adam snuffles against his neck. "You are so thinking about me right now," he mumbles.

Kris starts playing.

When Jeremy, the good cop in the studio's ingenious good cop/bad cop ploy, calls and asks Kris if he's sure he wants someone like Adam to be singing next to him at every show, especially the really big ones coming up, Kris doesn't get it at first.

"Someone like Adam... as in... someone gay?"

"No," Jeremy says, "as in someone whose voice is so... different from yours."

It's the tone rather than the words that finally clue Kris in. "You're worried he's going to out-sing me."

"You know that's not it, Kris. I'm just worried that, since he's so different, putting the two of you up for comparison might not be the best idea."

Kris tries to hold it in, he does, but the laughter bubbles out regardless, and once he starts, he can't seem to be able to stop.

"You're just not compatible," Jeremy says, sounding petulant. "That's all I'm saying."

"Right," Kris says, biting his lip hard. He can feel the laughter trying to escape his chest again. "Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate the concern. But I think I'll be okay."

"Oh, fine," Jeremy says. "At least tell him to stop dancing. That really doesn't work with your show."

Kris snorts. "I'll keep that in mind, man. Thanks."

Jeremy sighs. "Just doing my job. Looking out for you."

Adam corners Kris at lunch, taking a huge bite out of the tuna sandwich in Kris' hand as he places a laptop in front of him.

"Get your own," Kris tells him half-heartedly, pulling his sandwich away. He doesn't really feel like eating, but it's the principle of the thing. "What's this?"

"Exactly what I wanted to ask you!" Adam says, clicking a few keys to bring the laptop back to life. The screen flickers on to reveal a blog page, pink and splashy with ads, and in the middle of all that chaos are two pictures of Kris, side by side for easy comparison.

"Oh, come on," Kris says. "That picture is, like, months old. Look at my hair."

The picture on the left—with the ridiculously long hair Kris had sported for a while—is a shot of him standing at a bar; a guy, whose name Kris can't even remember now, has an arm wrapped around Kris' waist, fingers hooked in the waistband of Kris' jeans.

The picture on the right is one of him and Adam, though it's a cell phone picture, shot from a distance, so they're hardly recognizable. If Kris didn't remember that hat Adam is wearing, he would have doubted it himself. They're standing close, facing each other, and Adam's hands are on Kris' hips—above clothes this time.

Kris doesn't even bother reading the caption. He gets the idea. Kris Allen is a bisexual slut, whatever. It's kind of cute that they lower their standards for scandal when it comes to Kris. They would probably collectively die of heart attacks if Kris were to actually release a sex tape or something.

"So?" he says, giving Adam a raised eyebrow. It's not the first time a picture of the two of them has made the internet.

"So! It says you're cheating on your long-time boyfriend with me!"

Kris makes a face. "Long-time boyfriend? That guy? That guy is—I don't even remember his name."

Adam turns the laptop to himself. "His name's Michael," he informs Kris. "And he claims that he's your boyfriend."

Kris snorts. "Right."

Adam is pouting; because he got worked up over nothing, or because he cares about what the tabloids think, Kris has no idea, but the pout itself is deadly. Kris' stomach churns and he puts down the sandwich.

"Look, it was a while back. I... After my not-so-sensational coming out, I went through this phase..."

"What kind of phase?" Adam asks, looking up from the screen, head tilted suspiciously.

"You know."

Adam's mouth drops open. "A slutty phase? Kris Allen! Does your mother know?"

Kris grins. And just like that, the pout is gone and Kris Allen is the champion! "She said it was natural to experiment... and then she sicced Daniel on me."

Adam shakes his head, grinning impishly, but then his grin dims, his face turns thoughtful. "Did you need to rediscover yourself?"

Kris hadn't thought of it that way. "Maybe. A bit. Yeah."

Adam nods. "I get that. And you know, I totally approve of it." He sits up straighter. "Good for you," he says, voice firm. "Don't let people pigeonhole you. You're allowed to change, and you can be anything you wanna be."

Kris smiles at the indignant expression on Adam's face. He reaches out and laces their fingers together.

"So did it work? Did you find yourself?" Adam asks, running his thumb over Kris' knuckles, "...what you like?"

Since then, Kris has found out a lot of things about himself. Too many to put into words. "I think so. What do you think?"

Adam stares into his eyes, searching, and finally nods, satisfied with what he's found. "I think you're just fine."

Kris is pretty sure they both are.

The carpeting in the bus smells horrible. But the thing with buses is that they don't really have higher surfaces wide enough for two people to lie on, so he and Adam have to make do with the floor.

(Or lie on two separate bunks, but that always makes Adam sulk.)

Telling himself to suck it up and breathe through his mouth, Kris pillows his head on his arm and stares at the side of Adam's face.

Adam has been complaining that all this sun has made his freckles multiply, but Kris can't really tell the difference. And he likes them, anyway, so he wouldn't mind if they did indeed multiply. Adam hasn't put on any make-up today, but there are still blue smudges of last night's make-up around his eyes, and it somehow looks better today than it did yesterday. He has thick lashes, the kind Katy used to say she would kill for, and the skin under his eyes looks temptingly soft. Kris wants to run a finger over it, let Adam's lashes tickle his fingertip, and he wants to kiss Adam's face, every inch of it, slowly, taking his time.

But Adam is busy inhaling the rest of Kris' sandwich, so he probably wouldn't appreciate that.

"You're really adorable, you know that?" Kris says, staring at the drop of mayonnaise on the side of Adam's mouth.

Adam grins, deliberately showing him the contents of his mouth.

"And disgusting," Kris adds. "Adorable and disgusting."

"Mmmm," Adam says, happily munching on tuna.

Kris smiles and keeps watching.

Kris is doing sound-check when Adam hugs him from behind and plasters his chest to Kris' back—which is pretty much business as usual for them, but then Adam lets out a growl under his breath, and that makes Kris stop what he's doing and turn to look at him at an uncomfortable angle.

"Hey, what's up?" he says, studying Adam's face.

Instead of answering Kris or smiling his doubts away, Adam leans down to press a kiss on Kris' neck, his eyes trained on something at the other end of the stage. Kris follows his gaze to the new guitar tech, who sneaks a glance at them and hurriedly looks away.

Adam makes another low sound, rumbling in his chest.

"What's going on?" Kris asks, suspicious. He's clearly missing something.

"Nothing," Adam replies. "Why would you think there's something—"

Kris rolls his eyes. Sometimes, he really can't believe that Adam is an actor. Leaning back, he rocks them gently from side to side. "Don't bullshit me, Lambert. You're up to something."

"I'm not the one who's up to something," Adam says snidely.

Kris does a double take. He's never heard Adam sound so mean before. "Okay, now I'm officially worried," he says, turning around in Adam's arms. He ends up having to get a hold of Adam's chin to make him look down at him instead of glaring over his shoulder. "What? Talk to me."

Adam exhales loudly, looking annoyed. "It's nothing. I just don't like that guy."

He sounds dismissive, as if Kris is going to let him get away with that. Kris rolls his eyes and pinches Adam's waist to urge him on.

Adam squirms a little but then says, "I don't like the way he talks about you!"

Kris can't help but take another look at the tech. The guy is new and Kris is terrible with names, but he remembers talking to him once or twice. He's just a kid, but he'd sounded pretty well-rounded for his age. He didn't seem like the type to talk behind people's backs. "He's talking shit behind my back?"

"No," Adam says, sounding sulky. "He's very fond of you. A little too fond."

Kris snorts, finally catching a clue. "You're jealous?"

Adam lets go of him and takes a step back indignantly. "I'm not jealous! I'm just—annoyed."

Kris pulls him back in. Seriously, Adam is a bit too cute sometimes. "Doesn't he know that I'm your summer fling?" Kris asks playfully. "I wear the happy drumstick and everything."

Adam sighs in annoyance, but Kris sees the smile trying to break out. "Guess not."

"You should tell him," Kris says, rising up on his tiptoes to bump his forehead against Adam's. Adam's hair is slightly damp, on its way to drying in odd directions, already curling at the back. Kris' fingers tangle themselves in the curls to pull him in even closer. "Or you can just show him," Kris says, his breath ghosting over Adam's lips, his heart beginning to thump against his ribcage in anticipation.

Kris had decided long ago that pushing Adam would be careless, not worth the risk, so on a normal day, he reigns himself in tight and keeps within the boundaries they've drawn, but then some days... some days, not climbing all over Adam and taking what he wants proves to be a challenge.

Like today.

Kris' mind is saying danger, but his arms pull Adam in until their lips connect, and then there's that low growl again, released into Kris' mouth this time, and Adam is kissing him for all he's worth. Adam's arms, usually just warm and inviting and careful, hold him too tight, too close, trapped against his chest as Kris' mouth is plundered—as if Kris would ever pull back from him. As if he could.

When Kris does finally stop the kiss, it's only because, embarrassingly enough, he's forgotten to breathe, and from the looks of him, Adam is having a similar problem. "Jesus," Kris says under his breath, shaking his head, and then Adam swoops in again, licking Kris' lips open and stealing his words.

So this is what happens, Kris muses, when you draw out the foreplay for months. He's dizzy from one kiss, which is something he honestly doesn't ever remember happening to him before, and when Adam bites Kris' bottom lip and pulls back—really pulls back, standing tall and pushing Kris down from his toes—Kris almost breaks down and begs.

"I guess that worked," Adam says, looking over Kris' shoulder again.

Kris could care less about the guitar tech, honestly; and Adam must be able to read that in his face, because he smiles at him sheepishly and gives him an apologetic peck on the lips. "I don't like it when people have designs on your virtue."

Kris snorts and hugs Adam to hide his flushed face against his chest.

Into the folds of Adam's t-shirt he mumbles, "Well, someone should."

Adam doesn't hear him.

As the end of the tour draws near, Kris finds himself having to worry about things he had chosen to forget in the last couple of months; like TV interviews, award shows, guest appearances. And there are the issues with his next album, where the studio thinks he's headed with the songs he's been writing—they think he needs fewer ballads and more radio hits; Kris thinks they should all just shut up and let him name the album I'm in love with Adam Lambert—and his assistant keeps badgering him about the boxes he didn't bother unpacking in his new place, and... it's suddenly very different. Real life is around the corner now and it makes Kris feel like his skin is being stretched thin.

He's out of sorts and he has every reason to be, but that's not an excuse for him not noticing what's happening with Adam until Adam yells at him and makes it impossible for him to miss that something's very wrong.

Kris has been hanging out with the guys, drinking and chatting, all of them feeling loose now that the tour is coming to an end, and they get to talking about what they're bringing back for their girlfriends and wives, and... all that talk of significant others makes Kris miss Adam. He hasn't seen Adam all day, and to his beer-addled mind that seems completely unacceptable, so he grabs the nearest excuse and goes in search of him.

He finds Adam in Allison's bus, sitting cross-legged on the couch, working on the pink sweater.

"Adam!" Kris says, swaying in the doorway. "I need you to come with me!"

"Why?" Adam says, not looking up. He looks like he's counting under his breath. He does that sometimes while knitting; Kris loves falling asleep to its rhythm.

"You need to settle a bet for me. Come on."

Adam snorts, doesn't move a muscle. "Can't. I'm knitting."

"You can knit later," Kris whines. "There's beer! And pretty jewelry stuff!"

Adam looks up at that, but his lips are set in a grim line and his eyes aren't smiling at Kris. "I need to finish this, okay? Get someone else to settle your bet."

"Oh, come on." Kris doesn't want someone else to settle the stupid bet about the stupid necklaces. He wants Adam to come and snuggle with him, and he wants to show off his sort-of-maybe boyfriend to the guys... but really, it's mostly about the snuggling. It's getting harder and harder to stay on his feet, and leaning back against Adam's chest sounds wonderful to Kris right now. "You're not going to finish that anytime soon anyway," he tells Adam. "Come, hang out with us; you'll work on it later."

"Kris, I'm not your—"

"Come on, Adam—"

"I said fucking no!"

Kris stops, sobers up a little at the sheer volume of Adam's voice. He's never heard Adam raise his voice to anyone before—let alone to him.

"I'm... sorry," he offers, not exactly sure what he did wrong. Was he too annoying? He shouldn't have drunk so much.

"It's fine," Adam huffs. "I'm just—" He looks down at the sweater in his lap and picks the needles back up. "I'm busy."

"Okay," Kris says, walking backwards and stumbling down the steps. "Um. Good night?"

Adam doesn't respond, or if he does, Kris doesn't catch it.

He walks back to the guys, bet completely forgotten, and then proceeds to drink until he can't see straight.

"Don't go to bed angry, man," Cale says. Is he joking? It's not really funny.

"Who said anything about going to bed?" Kris says and passes out in Cale's lap.

Kris wakes up with a throbbing headache.

Adam is quiet, but he's there. He brings Kris painkillers and makes him drink enough water to drown him before caving and giving him a cup of coffee.

They don't talk about the night before. Adam doesn't apologize; Kris decides he doesn't need to. People have bad days. Adam is allowed one, too.

They spend the day tiptoeing around one another.

Adam keeps knitting.

The week passes with more of the same. Kris is tired of fighting with the suits over his new songs, he's sick of the bus, and he's frustrated with Adam's silent treatment. Adam gets more and more withdrawn and irritable, and Kris finds himself pulling back instead of pushing to see what's really wrong.

It's just a bad time all around.

Adam still sings with him though, so there's that.

Allison seems more chipper the closer they get to home, and that's so refreshing that Kris hangs onto her cheer to get him through the miserable days. He's going to miss her in L.A. He always misses her when they're apart.

They're having brunch—with prepackaged sandwiches, but it still counts—and Allison is going on and on about this one stylist that tried to put her in a pink princess dress when Adam comes out of nowhere and starts pulling at Kris' clothes.

"What? Adam—what?"

"Just—try it on," Adam says, standing back now that he has the sweater halfway on Kris.

"Oookay," Kris says, pulling it on and staring at Adam twitching where he's standing, like maybe he's had too much coffee. Kris hasn't seen him sleep for days, so who knows.

The sweater's a little tight around the chest, but it's not like Kris is actually going to wear it outside, what with the neon pink color and all, so he looks down at it and shrugs. "Looks great."

Adam huffs, arms crossed over his chest and head tilted critically, and says, "I need to redo the right arm." He starts pulling at it again, because apparently he can't wait a couple of seconds for Kris to get it off himself, and then he runs off as soon as he has his precious bundle of wool back.

Kris stares after him until he disappears around a corner. "I have no idea what's up with him."

Allison raises an eyebrow. "What's up with any of us these days?"

Kris thinks it's a rhetorical question at first, but Allison keeps staring, so he swallows his mouthful of sandwich and says, "Uh... the tour's ending?"

Allison nods encouragingly.

"And uh... we're going home?"

"Right," Allison says, gesturing with her soda. "And what does that mean for Adam?"

"Oh," Kris says, having an epiphany. "He doesn't have anywhere to go."

Allison deflates, frowning at him. "You suck at this, man. You think he's frantically trying to finish a sweater for you, because he's worried about himself?"

"I don't know!" Kris says, dropping his sandwich. He's not hungry anymore. "His mind works in mysterious ways! How should I know what he's thinking?"

"Okay, up!"

Allison pulls at his arm until he caves and stands up. What's with people manhandling him today, geez.

"All right. I'm up. Now what?"

She smacks his ass. "Now go talk to him."

"What—right now?" Kris whines. He doesn't want to fight with Adam. Lately, all they do is make each other angry. "Can't you just tell me—"

"No," Allison says, sitting back down and putting her feet up on Kris' chair. "Go," she says, looking towards the buses pointedly.

Kris sighs and does as he's told.

Adam is predictable—at least to Kris—so Kris finds him at the second place he looks: behind Allison's bus.

"Mom, that's not how it works."

Kris stops just short of alerting Adam to his presence. He hates interrupting Adam's conversations with his mom. Despite having never talked to her, Kris has a lot of respect for Leila. He appreciates what she's doing, keeping tabs on Adam—because God knows someone should. Adam needs that in his life. And no matter how much he whines, Kris knows that Adam likes it, too.

"It's not—no, mom."

This one doesn't sound like a particularly fun conversation. In addition to the usual childish annoyance Adam sounds... weary.

"Mom, please," Adam says, "I'm okay. Everything's fine. I told you before that it wasn't like that. You're the only one who seems to have a problem with it."

His free hand makes stabbing gestures in the air, and his voice gets higher.

"I'm not bringing him home to meet you, because it's not that kind of a relationship, okay? Now stop trying to guilt me into doing something I'll regret!"

Kris' heart stops, and all the blood in his body rushes to his face. He shouldn't be here. He should turn around and leave before Adam notices him. But he's rooted to the spot and can't move a muscle.

Adam listens and nods for a long time, calming down and humming his assent into the phone.

"Right," he says finally, nodding again. "I'm not denying that. But I'm okay. I don't know what to say to make you believe me. I just—I'm not saying I'm not—" He runs a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes. "I knew how this was going to go from the start. I'm not heartbroken."

The defeat in Adam's voice is badly masked, and Kris would bet his guitar that Leila doesn't buy the act.

Neither does Kris.

The walk back to the table isn't particularly long, but Kris' mind is jumping from thought to thought lightning-fast, so it feels like it takes years.

Kris hasn't really been worried about saying goodbye to Adam, because frankly, he's gone through all the stages—worry and fretting and panicking—months ago and come out the other side. His final decision is that whatever Adam says, whatever everyone thinks, Kris has no intention of letting go of him. He'll stalk Adam if necessary. He'll sic his fans on him. He's ready to play dirty and do whatever it takes to keep Adam in his life. But of course he never shared that with Adam; that would have defeated the purpose of his sneaky plans. And it never occurred to Kris that Adam might be worried about the same things, because, well—it was Adam who drew the lines in the first place. He's been the one with all the answers – nonsensical though they were – so Kris didn't think...

But of course he should have. He should have known that Adam would try and make this as complicated as he possibly can for himself. Kris doesn't even know why he's surprised.

Miscommunication was bound to happen between the two of them. It was inevitable since sometimes they don't even speak the same language. And just because Kris has a Ph.D. in Adam-ese doesn't mean that Adam can read him in return.

It took dedication and long hours of observation—that Kris enjoyed immensely, to be honest—and now he knows when Adam says 'You’re like cherry pie... with whipped cream on top,' what he really means is 'I love you.' And when Adam tells people that Kris makes him want to knit the whole world a warm and sparkly sweater, Kris knows he's trying to say that Kris makes him happy.

Maybe Kris just doesn't have tells like that. Maybe he's harder to read than he thinks he is. He can't really blame Adam for not knowing what's been going through his mind. In the end, he's mostly blaming himself, because dammit, he should have known the pink sweater meant 'I don't want to leave you.' How did he miss that one?

He's contemplating what would be the best way to say 'I don't want you to leave me either,'—a smack to the back of the head comes to mind—when he finds himself standing in front of Allison, who's staring up at him expectantly.

He kicks her feet off his chair and sits back down.

"Just how dumb is he?"

Allison doesn't approve of him calling her best friend dumb, and neither does Kris, really, but come on. What more can he possibly do to show Adam that he's in this for the long haul? He has agreed to every whim, every demand; he bent over backwards for Adam, and now...

"You shouldn't have let him get away with it," Allison says.

"Yeah," Kris says. "Thank you. This helps a lot now."

Allison shrugs. "I'm not your mom," she says. Then she looks thoughtful for a moment. "Speaking of moms... maybe you should've talked to Leila."

Kris drops his head down on the table. "I don't have a time machine, Allison. What do I do now?" he mumbles. He's going to have to talk to Adam. It's going to be a horrifyingly painful relationship talk, but they'll somehow get through it. Hopefully, without killing one another.

"You need something big," Allison says.

Kris raises his head. "Big?" Like a big present? He can get Adam a car.

"Something he can't miss," Allison says. "That he can't misinterpret."

What, like, write him a love letter? Kris is not much of a writer. He can't see that going anywhere good.

"Something..." Allison says, eyes narrowed in thought. "Something so obvious and out there that neither of you can back out of."

Kris sighs. "This is going to end in public humiliation, isn't it?" he says, resigned to his fate.

Allison shrugs. "Probably. Is he worth it?"

Kris doesn't even dignify that question with an answer.

The days following Kris' revelation remind him eerily of being on Idol.

He picks his song—not one of his new songs, because they're scarily revealing and nowhere near ready for Adam, let alone the public, yet—and he practices day and night, twisting the notes and the words to his will until he makes them his own. This isn't as easy as holding a boom box over his head and looking love-struck; he's trying to impress Adam here, Adam who knows music and who knows Kris and... who deserves so much more than something generic.

Between interviews and shows and practicing, Kris doesn't have a lot of time for nerves, which is a godsend. It also helps that Adam keeps away from him for the most part. Kris tries not to think about how Adam is probably gearing himself up for a breakup, trying to make this easy on both of them by staying away; instead, he focuses on the last show.

Kris is just going to go for it, close the tour with a bang. The guys are okay with it and to hell with everyone else.

The studio's going to freak, so will his publicist, but he can deal with all that after. It's nothing he hasn't been through before after all, and the rewards—hopefully—will be worth the trouble this time around.

The last show is on Saturday and Kris has the whole thing planned to the tiniest detail, down to the chair Adam will be sitting in when Kris professes his undying love to him. He's not big on plans normally, but this is too important; nothing can go wrong—but then he wakes up on Thursday morning to Adam crouching in front of his bunk, and with one look, he manages to turn Kris' plans sideways and throw a bucket of cold water over everything.

Adam is so unhappy that it hurts to look at him. It's not the vague, foggy air of unhappiness he carried around with him when they first met; this is raw and open, like a still bleeding wound. Kris sits up, rubbing his eyes, and Adam tries to smile at him reassuringly. What comes out is more of a grimace.

"Here," Adam says, handing over the pink sweater. There's no thread hanging from the side of it now, no needle stuck anywhere, so Kris guesses that it's finally done.

He doesn't spare it more than a cursory glance. He knows what the sweater means and he doesn't want the damn thing anymore. He wishes they could just burn it.

"What's going on?"

Adam produces a piece of paper out of nowhere and waves it half-heartedly between them. "I'm leaving. Tonight."

It's a bus ticket. Kris can't see what the tiny letters on it say, but he guesses Adam is heading back home.

"We have shows," he says stupidly; it's the first thing that pops into his mind. "Two more after tonight."

"You should do the last shows yourself," Adam tells him with a shrug. "I'm not the one they're coming to see."

"Adam..."

One corner of Adam's lips curls up and he looks to Kris from under his lashes. "I don't like dragging out goodbyes; it's not a big deal."

Kris stares, barely holding back from tackling Adam and kissing him breathless. He tells himself to quit being a drama queen, reminds himself of his original plan. He was supposed to let Adam go first and then follow him after Adam got his life back together. How was he going to do that if he can't even bear to let Adam out of his sight now? It's childish, wanting to hold onto someone forever and ever and every minute of every day. Kris is stronger than that. He's supposed to be more rational.

But the truth is, he's so in love with Adam it's hard to think sometimes. Especially when Adam is looking at him with those blue eyes of his—Kris' favorite color for months now—and they're red-rimmed and the tiniest bit wet.

"All right," he says, gathering up all his strength to keep from acting on his instinct. "At least stay until the end of the show tonight."

Adam's shoulders are slumped, but he's nodding, thank God. "Of course. I'll be there."

"Great," Kris says, faking a yawn and looking away.

Neither of them say anything as Adam walks out quietly.

Kris spends the day flailing about in a panic.

He keeps telling himself that it's not the end of the world if Adam leaves before the show. It doesn't mean anything. But his body's being very irrational about this whole thing and it gets seriously hard to breathe from time to time.

In the end, he decides to enlist some help so he won't lose his mind completely.

"Don't let him leave," he tells Allison, consciously willing himself not to squeeze her arm too tightly.

She looks confused for a moment, but then her face clears and her eyes grow comically wide. "You mean—you're doing it? Tonight?"

Kris nods jerkily. "Yes. And I need you to keep an eye on him. He can't leave."

Allison gives him a cheeky salute. "Aye aye, captain!" She grins wide, showing all her teeth. "I'll sit on him if I have to. Don't you worry."

Kris breathes, his chest feeling a little less tight now. "Right. Okay. I'm just gonna—"

"I've got this, man. You go get ready!"

An hour before the show, Kris decides that this whole thing was stupid idea after all.

He should just tell Adam. He should—he should go find Adam right now and say it to his face—no fuss, no crowds to witness, no song. He should just say I love you, don't leave me, and see what happens. Because if, after all this, Adam says no—if Adam runs off without a word—if Adam smiles sadly and shakes his head... Kris may very well die. He's not even exaggerating.

He knows why this way is better; he does. He knows Allison was right about one thing; unless it's something irrefutable, something not only the two of them but everybody knows, then Adam will definitely walk away. Kris can see it clear as day. He can see himself stammering through a love declaration and Adam twisting it into something much less than what Kris means for it to be. Adam is scared of being hurt, and for some reason, he thinks Kris isn't dead-serious about this. Or maybe he's trying to protect Kris from himself? God knows what's going through his mind, but one thing's for certain, if Kris tries to talk to him and fails, it'll be even worse than not having talked to him at all.

So he'll sing. And there'll be proof. There'll be thousands of witnesses. It'll be on YouTube. Adam can still say no or not say anything at all, but at least he won't be able to ignore that.

Kris can do this. All he has to do is breathe until the time comes. In and out. Steady. Just breathe.

Even after all this time, fans still have the power to make everything better—up to and including impending love declaration jitters apparently.

They're just so happy to see Kris, so happy to listen to him and sing with him. The moment Kris steps foot on the stage, he knows he's doing the right thing by choosing to share this with them. They'll cherish this almost as much as he does. And if he ends up embarrassing himself... well. They'll probably hug him a lot and try to set him up with guys who look like Adam. Which could be useful in case he ever needs to make Adam jealous.

Not that Kris would ever stoop to that.

Okay, yeah, depending on how tonight goes, there's a very small chance that he might stoop to that. But it's unlikely. Really unlikely.

Once he's on stage, Kris doesn't look for Adam. He knows Adam must be around from the way Allison had winked at him before the show, but it's better if Kris doesn't see him and lose his focus and promptly start freaking out again. Instead, he empties his mind of all but the songs, and he sings like it's the last time he'll ever be on a stage.

Before he knows it, he's drenched in sweat and he's almost done with his set. In fact, if this were any other night, he'd be calling Adam to the stage to come sing with him right about now.

But it's not any other night, and Adam isn't going to be singing.

Wiping his face with a towel, Kris turns to Cale for support. Cale nods, saying ready when you are.

Kris nods back. He's ready as he'll ever be.

"It's time for our special guest to join us." The crowd starts cheering. They know Adam by now. Kris gets the feeling that they look forward to him. "Adam. Where are you?"

It takes forever for Adam to arrive. Kris tries not to look worried but he's starting to despair by the time Adam makes it there.

"Hi," Adam says, giving Kris a nervous-looking smile and waving to the audience.

Kris tries to smile back.

Adam looks absolutely amazing. Terrifyingly amazing. He's wearing black jeans, so tight they must be cutting off his circulation, a black shirt, and a vest. Where did he even get those clothes, Kris wonders. He's certainly never seen them before. Adam’s hair looks tousled in an artful way that Kris is sure took him a ridiculous amount of time to get right, he has earrings dangling from both ears, and his eyes... Kris can't look away from his eyes. The purple make-up brings out the color of them and makes them glimmer and shine in this completely ethereal way that—

Right. Kris gulps and shakes himself. Can't get lost in Adam's eyes now. There's a plan. He needs to stick to the plan.

Besides, this isn't just any awesome get-up Adam is wearing here. Even while sweating and panicking himself, Kris can see the defenses Adam put up crystal clear. It's the exact opposite of what he was doing when they met, not hiding behind a façade of carelessness this time but building a wall of an untouchable persona. To prove that he's okay? That he's strong? Well, whatever he's selling here, Kris is definitely not buying. He wouldn't be able to even if he wanted—not with the red-rimmed eyes from this morning still haunting him.

Adam looks confused when instead of bringing him a microphone stand, the tech brings over a bar stool and sets it in the middle of the stage. He looks to Kris in askance, and Kris nods, gesturing for him to sit.

"You're not singing tonight," Kris says, his stomach cramping and his toes tingling. It's a strange mix of anticipation and terror that he remembers from when he proposed to Katy. That time had been pretty mild compared to this though, possibly because he'd still had some common sense back then and hadn't chosen to do it in front of an audience.

"I'm not singing," Adam repeats slowly. "Then what am I doing?"

"You're..." Kris holds his hands up in a meaningless gesture. "Sitting. You're sitting. I'll be singing."

He looks away from Adam, towards his band first, to give them the signal, and then the audience, because, well, because he's a coward. His hands feel empty with no guitar, so he holds onto the microphone like a lifeline.

"This song's for Adam," he says, then clears his throat. Can he still sing? God, he hopes he can still sing. There's no going back now; he has to be able to sing. But before he can start, he hears a commotion behind him and turns around to find Cale standing behind Adam, hands on Adam's shoulders, holding him in place. Adam is saying something Kris can't hear, but he can guess what it's about.

That's the moment when something inside Kris finally snaps and he's not afraid anymore. He's beyond nervousness. He's going to do this. He's going to stop pussyfooting and just jump.

Kris' hand on his knee stops Adam's wiggling. Kris doesn't even need to say anything. He holds Adam's questioning gaze, remotely registering that Cale has let go, and then he waits for his cue and starts singing.

It's not like he hasn't sung to Adam before.

“Something in the way he moves,

Attracts me like no other lover...”

Kris sees Adam's lips shape the words oh God, but the sound doesn't make it to his ears through the music and all the cheering. Adam looks slightly lightheaded and a bit like he might throw up, but he's not trying to flee anymore, so Kris decides that he must be doing okay, and with one last squeeze to Adam's knee he turns back to face the audience.

“Something in the way he woos me,

I don't want to leave him now,

You know I believe and how...”

The fans are going completely crazy, on a scale that Kris hasn't seen in any of his shows before, and for a second he imagines how fast this is going to make it to TMZ and E! and his parents, and then he shakes it off and starts singing again, everything else pushed aside. It'll blow over. These things always do.

Kris steals glances at Adam all through the song, but Adam doesn't even blink. He's sitting there with his back straight, hands white-knuckled on the seat, and a completely frozen, unreadable expression on his face. It's not a particularly good sign, no doubt about it, but Kris is refusing to take it as a bad one either. Adam is still there, after all.

“You're asking me will my love grow,

I don't know, I don't know...”

This part is important, he worked on a million different intonations of these words until he found the right ones, so he goes back to Adam and stands between his spread legs, taking one of his hands in his and running a thumb over the soft skin of his wrist.

“You stick around and it may show,

I don't know, I don't know...”

"Kris," Adam says, sounding strangled, but Kris shakes his head. Just a bit longer. He's almost done.

Kris makes himself turn away from Adam. He's on a stage and there are people who actually paid to hear him sing and not just to his boyfriend, but getting through the next couple of verses is a challenge. He sings and he sings and he sings, and then—the music is fading and he's done. Everyone's cheering, Kris realizes, and he breathes in, taking in as deep a breath as he can—and he turns to Adam and says, "Um. I love you."

He hears Cale laughing behind him, but he can't turn to look. He's looking at Adam, and Adam's staring back at him, and this is it. This is where Adam says—

"Are you completely insane?"

Kris licks his lips and shrugs. "Possibly."

"You can't just—"

Kris knows Adam well enough to see a rant coming, so he cuts him off by stepping closer and interrupting before Adam can really get into it. "Adam. Focus."

Adam stops talking and glares at him.

"I love you," Kris says again, enunciating the words clearly. He fumbles with the neck of his t-shirt with one hand and brings out the pendant Adam gave him. "This," he says, pulling on the chain until it gives. "I don't want this. I'm not okay with this being a fling anymore."

The crowd is chanting Kiss him! Kiss him! Kiss him! and his band is keeping tempo and Adam's head is bowed, he's staring down at the pendant Kris dropped in his palm, and—it's all a bit too much suddenly. Kris takes a step back. "You can think about it," he chokes out. "Take your time. I'm not trying to pressure you or anything—"

Adam's head whips up, and he gives Kris a look—an exasperated, fond look that doesn't at all say he wants to think about this. Then he's mumbling something unfavorable about Kris' intelligence and stepping down from the stool, falling into Kris and kissing him; soft and careful, with intent, his hands cradling Kris' face, breathing inaudible words into his mouth.

By the time Adam stops kissing Kris, the band has started playing a new song behind them, Cale making the crowd clap in time with the beat, and there's a lightshow around the two of them that Kris certainly didn't arrange or ask for.

They stand in the middle of all that and stare at one another. Adam's mouth is shiny and red, both from his lip-gloss and the kissing, and Kris traces his bottom lip with a fingertip, letting it glide across the perfect bow. He doesn't know what to say now; he's said all he'd planned to, more than he'd planned to, and it's Adam's turn now, but Adam doesn't move, and he doesn't speak; he doesn't even seem to be breathing...

Until suddenly he's moving.

He grabs Kris by the hand and pulls him backstage, not even stopping when Cale starts to laugh and makes a quip about them needing privacy. Kris lets himself be guided and pulled and turned, and when Adam pushes him against a wall, Kris draws him closer and wraps his arms around him.

A breath. Another. And another. And then they're kissing like there's no tomorrow, and finally, finally, it's perfect.

A camera flash brings Kris back to earth and it takes him a second to register what they're doing and where.

He tries to straighten up, do up his buttons, but Adam seems oblivious to the two—three—four—oh, God—all those people staring at them, some of them holding up camera phones.

"Adam!" Kris gasps quietly. "We need a door."

Adam grunts against Kris' collarbone, his hands splayed against Kris' back under his shirt. He doesn't look like he cares about their audience at all, or even notices them, really.

Kris looks around for a way out. He can't even remember where they are. At the end of a tour, all venues inevitably start to bleed into one another, but Kris has been here for two days now, he should at least be able to remember which way the bathrooms are. This is ridiculous.

"This is—we'd better—"

Adam bites his neck and Kris shuts his eyes. Maybe they could just stay there. It's not like he cares all that much about the pictures. As if in agreement, Adam snakes a hand between them and cups him through his jeans, pressing down with the heel of his hand, making Kris keen and push up against him in return.

"Guh," Kris says, clutching at Adam's arm. "Privacy. We need—" He's panting too hard to speak, so he takes a hold of Adam's chin instead and makes him look up. "Privacy," he repeats.

Adam blinks. "Right."

He looks around and off they go again, running on unsteady legs; this time, thankfully, towards a door.

They have a closed door—with a chair wedged under the knob—between them and the rest of humanity. They're in a dressing room, mirrors on the walls, clothes strewn all over the floor, and Kris is lying on a couch, flushed and breathless and wanting more, his fingers carding through Adam's now not-so-artfully tousled hair, trembling under Adam's hands.

"I can't believe I'm touching you like this," Adam says, licking up Kris' chest and sucking a nipple into his mouth.

It makes Kris hiss and buck up. "I can't believe," Kris says through gritted teeth, "that we waited so long."

"Yeah, well," Adam says, pulling away to give Kris a meaningful look. "That was not my fault."

Kris splutters. "When did I ever say 'no sex'? I never said 'no sex'. I was hoping for a lot of sex."

Adam looks amused. He's giving Kris this incredibly annoying smirk—Kris is going to call that Adam's sex smirk, because he hadn't seen that all summer and it popped right out the moment their pants came off—but he seems too busy with that bottle of something he'd grabbed earlier to comment any further.

Not that Kris wants him to comment. Adam's fingers press inside him gently, and his lips wrap around Kris' cock, and no, Kris doesn't want any comments from him. He rocks his hips, working with Adam's rhythm, and decides that he very much doesn't care whose fault it was that they didn't have sex until now. It doesn't matter anymore. There are more important things to consider. Like how many condoms they have and how long it'll take for the crew to break that door down.

"I can't wait to get you on a bed," Adam says, his voice dripping sex.

Kris moans, throwing his head back and pushing his hips down for more.

"I'm going to fuck you for days and weeks and months."

"Uh, what," Kris says, shaking his head and scowling at Adam, because it sounds like Adam thinks they're not fucking right here right now, and he couldn't be more wrong about that. "Condom," Kris says, trying to make sense. "Now, Adam."

Adam's hand automatically goes to his back pocket to get his wallet out, but then he pauses, looking unsure, and raises an eyebrow. "This is really not the place—"

Kris chuckles, breathless. "Oh, it is so the place..."

Adam's other eyebrow joins the first. "Are you sure?"

Kris looks down at himself pointedly, body sprawled haphazardly over the couch, flushed red and sweaty all over, hard, needy, completely wanton. "You want a written invitation?"

With a growl, Adam pounces.

Two condoms, that's all they have, but the rational side of Kris' brain is grateful for that, knowing if they had more supplies they probably would have refused to leave.

"I want to stay inside you forever," Adam whispers to the back of his neck.

Kris would blush at that—how does Adam just say it—but his body's already on fire, every nerve ending overcharged and sizzling. "That would be uncomfortable," he says, his voice not entirely steady.

Adam hums. "But satisfying." He pulls Kris closer, tightening his arms around Kris' chest. "Do you know how long I've been dreaming of this? I've been pining."

Kris snorts. "You have not been pining."

"My dick has been pining," Adam insists.

"Well, your dick should have said something. Made its intentions clear."

"Maybe it didn't wanna scare you away."

Kris rubs Adam's arm, leans his head back to feel Adam's breath against his cheek. "I'm not going anywhere."

Adam nuzzles his hair. "I'm going to hold you to that."

Epilogue

When the packing is all done, Kris has six bags in total, not including his equipment.

He had started with two.

It's ridiculous.

He looks around the bus one last time to see if he left anything and then grabs his guitar case and steps outside.

"All done?" Adam asks, raising his unnecessarily large sunglasses up to squint at him.

Adam is leaning against Kris' car, which was dropped off a couple of hours ago by his assistant, and Adam already has his bags stashed in the trunk. It gives Kris a little thrill to know that they're going to his place, together, even if it's just for a couple of weeks.

"Yup. Just—let me put away the guitar and we can go." He steps around Adam to grab his guitar from the front seat, where he left it after giving an impromptu farewell concert to the crew, and then opens the case to put it in.

And there lays Sparkle. Just where Kris had left it.

"Huh."

"What's that?" Adam asks, craning his neck to see.

Kris holds it up.

Adam's face lights up like a kid. "Sparkle!" he says, kneeling next to Kris to look closer. "You kept it!"

Kris tries not to flush under Adam's unabashedly adoring gaze. He shrugs. "Of course I did. You gave it to me."

"You didn't even know me back then," Adam says softly. "I didn't really think you'd keep it."

Kris shrugs. "Yeah, well. I wanted to know you, so..."

Adam smiles and hands Sparkle back to Kris, holding it carefully, reverently. Before he puts it in Kris' hand though, he stops and says, "Wait. You didn't ever use it?"

Kris chokes on his spit. He's suddenly very glad that Cale isn't around to mention their little discussion over penis warmers. "I—Uh. I... didn't..."

Adam keeps staring at him.

Kris sighs. "I don't know what it is."

There, he said it.

Adam clucks his tongue. "You could've asked!"

Kris doesn't tell him he was afraid that Adam would try and put a knit condom on him if he did. He just shrugs. "I didn't want to bother you, so I just kept it in here, out of harm's way."

Adam makes an awww face and holds Sparkle up, fixing up the head and gesturing to the length of it as if he's demonstrating it.

Kris sincerely hopes that he's not demonstrating it.

"I wanted it to be something specifically for you, you know? So I thought long and hard about it before I decided on this."

"Right," Kris says, nodding.

Adam stares at him, still waiting for him to get it. Kris shakes his head sheepishly. He's not saying the words penis warmer. That's just not happening.

Adam huffs, rolls his eyes. "It's a microphone cover!" he says, throwing his hands up.

"Oh." Kris stares, eyes moving between Adam and Sparkle a couple of times, and yeah, okay, now he can see it. Kind of. "That's... wow. Obviously."

Adam grins. "Right? So now you can use it."

Kris takes Sparkle from him and says, "Definitely. I've got some microphones that needed covers at home."

Adam presses a kiss to Kris' temple and walks over to the other side of the car to take the passenger seat. Kris blinks down at Sparkle for a second before placing it carefully back in the case. He has no idea why someone would need a knit microphone cover, but he's feeling an inexplicable warmth towards the little thing now.

He puts the guitar case in the backseat and then buckles himself in. "I could use more, you know?" he says conversationally as he pulls out of the parking spot. "I have a lot of microphones."

Adam hums his assent. "Maybe one in red?" he suggests.

Kris nods. "Red would be perfect."

The End

April 6th, 2011