Fanfic: All's Fair in Work and Play, PG-13 by misura

[misura.livejournal.com]

Title: All's Fair in Work and Play
Author: misura
Rating: PG-13
Prompt #: 51
Disclaimer: This never happened in this universe.
Notes: This fic's plot (and I use the term loosely here) pretty much revolves on the idea that Sex Solves Everything. Without, you know, actually including any sex. This fic includes one instant of (mentioned but not shown) very mild and inexplicit sexual harassment.


51. Kris Allen isn't the type for one night stands, but he can't resist the mysterious stranger at the bar who is just his type: tall, dark and handsome.

Their one night of passion is unforgettable; as unforgettable as the way Adam left without a word before morning.

But what's Kris to do when Adam is the new hired gun brought in to downsize his department?


"It was icecream for me," Katy said, and if there'd been any previous bits of conversation, such as a discussion about favorite desserts or something like that, that line might have made some sense to Kris.

Since there hadn't, he said: "Huh?"

"Last night's sinful indulgence? A last huzzah before this jerk from headquarters tells me I can go and do the work of two people from now on because he's just fired someone?"

"Oh." Kris hadn't forgotten the review, of course. "That." It just ... hadn't been on his mind.

Katy offered him a cup of coffee, which was very welcome, and a penetrating look, which was less so.

"So you and Richie hooked up again? Or did you finally wisen up and only use him for sex?"

"It wasn't Richie." The words were out of Kris's mouth before he quite realized who he was talking to. "I mean, who said anything about sex?" Back-pedalling when it was far too late - story of his life, it seemed sometimes. "Did I say anything about having had sex last night?"

"Written all over your face," Katy said. "Must have been pretty amazing sex, too, given how out of it you are. Did you even get any sleep? Because I swear, Kris, if you're going to let this asshole walk all over you and fire people left and right just because you're too tired to keep your head, I'm going to kick your ass. And then I'll quit and become a famous actress and every time you see my face on a poster, you can tell people I once worked for you as your secretary."

Kris didn't doubt for a moment she meant every word. "Like anybody'd believe me."

"That's why it's called 'revenge'."


Adam Lambert was not having a good day, and if someone suitable to take it out on wasn't going to come along soon, he thought he might take it out on someone unsuitable, and that would be bad - for them more than for him, probably, which was why Adam tried really hard to keep his temper.

The thing was: nobody who worked in this place was bad at his or her job, exactly. He'd reviewed eleven of Smith & Smith's sixteen offices so far, and in each of them, there'd been at least one bad apple with a sob-story (or in one case: some really interesting pictures of his boss and someone who was most definitely not his boss's wife) for Adam to get rid of without a second thought. (He hadn't gotten rid of the guy in the pictures; there was no official company policy against cheating on one's spouse, although he'd made sure the wife got some nice copies of the pictures, reasoning that if the guy couldn't handle his own wife finding out he'd taken a walk on the wild side, he definitely couldn't handle the sort of responsibilities that came with being a manager at Smith & Smith's.)

He'd been kind of hoping he'd be able to do the same here, too - the personnel files had only sounded mildly promising, but Adam'd been convinced the interviews would turn up something useful, or rather someone usefully useless.

No dice so far, and with only three names left on his list, Adam didn't have much hope this'd be another one of those cases where he'd have everything all nicely wrapped up in a single day.

So much for his perfect record.

"Okay, thanks for your time, Allison." He dredged up a smile from somewhere. "Could you ask Danny to come in next, please?"


"All right," Katy said, "so the guy's either a perfectly nice person who simply happens to have gotten stuck with a lousy job, or he's a slimy, smarmy, sneaky piece of scum. Sign this, please?"

Kris signed.

"Thank you. Now normally, I'd have given him the benefit of doubt," Katy went on, "but in this case, I've spoken with Archie who's talked to David - "

"Is that what they're calling it nowadays?" Kris muttered.

"And David says this guy's, like, axed sixteen people mere minutes after he's met them. Like: 'how do you do - and oh, you're fired'."

"Maybe he's just the messenger?" Kris suggested hopefully. "I mean, he can't be firing people simply because he doesn't like their face or something."

"Sure he can," Katy said. "It's what he's getting paid for."

Kris considered saying something about how it wasn't like that at all - he'd gotten a memo about the review a week in advance and how it was intended to 'increase efficiency' and 'cut down on unnecessary expenses' and all other sorts of terms that if Kris was honest with himself were all just different ways of saying that yeah, they were going to fire some people.

He just hadn't thought it would be happening here, at his office.

"Oh, Kris," Katy said, once again demonstrating that she wasn't entirely human by reading his mind. "If you weren't a guy, I'd be giving you a hug for being such a cute idiot."

"Thank you?"

Katy smiled at him. If Kris had been straight, he thought he probably could have fallen for her - they could have gotten married and moved into this perfect apartment Katy'd somehow find and Kris'd never wake up again in the morning and wonder if maybe last night had been a dream, seeing as how that hot guy he'd picked up at the bar seemed to have left without even leaving a note.

"Hey," Katy said softly. "Don't go all sad on me, Kris. Look at it from the bright side. I mean, it's not like you needed another Richie in your life."

Kris frowned and opened his mouth to protest that he was over Richie - pretty much since Richie'd told him he thought he was actually straight, which Kris had handled pretty well, he'd thought, only then Richie'd called him again three weeks later to say he thought he might be gay after all - except that two weeks after that, Richie'd changed his mind once more.

And then Danny burst out of the conference room Katy'd set up the guy from HQ in.

Crying.


Adam honestly hadn't intended to reduce the guy to tears - except that actually, he sort of maybe had, just a little. He hadn't been able to help himself.

In theory, of course, Adam wasn't supposed to judge people based on their personal lives or convictions; so long as they didn't take those things to work. It was a free country, and Smith and Smith's prided itself on being an equal-opportunities employer.

There was just something about people like Danny that rubbed Adam the completely wrong way. He'd offered the guy a cup of coffee, suggesting the man sit down, and Danny'd given him a look as if Adam'd requested him to strip naked or something like that.

On any other day, Adam'd probably have made some effort to connect, to get it through Danny's head that being gay didn't mean wanting to have sex with every guy you met, but firstly, he was already having a bad day and secondly, he wasn't here to make a good impression on Danny. Danny was here to make a good impression on Adam. Because straight or not, Adam was fully entitled to fire him, if he so chose. Equal-opportunities also meant you didn't need to cut anyone any slack, after all.

So. Instead of being diplomatic, he'd opted to demonstrate what really constituted sexual harassment.

He'd kept it relatively clean, of course; there was only so much Adam could fake, and even if Danny hadn't been homophobic and proud of it, he still wouldn't have been Adam's type. Still, when someone started making faces when you were offering them coffee, it wasn't exactly hard to push things well outside someone's comfort zones.

Adam wasn't sure if he'd be able to get away with first making someone cry and then firing them (the other way around would probably have been more acceptable) but unless a better candidate showed up, he supposed he'd found his budget cut.

And then the door to the conference room was slammed open to reveal the last person Adam'd ever expected to see walking in.


Kris could remember the last time he'd been this angry. Ironically, perhaps, it had also involved Danny, although in that particular case, Danny had been the guilty party rather than the victim, as he was here.

That time, Kris had kept his head cool and his temper in check. He'd talked to Allison, and then he'd talked to Danny, and then he'd talked to Danny some more until he was absolutely sure Danny got it. And Danny had gotten it, Kris knew. He didn't have the illusion Danny'd ever really change on the inside, but on the outside, at least, he'd be polite even to people whose opinions or lifestyles he didn't argee with. That was good enough for Kris.

Apparently, it hadn't been good enough for the guy from HQ.

"You can't - " he started, all ready to launch into this speech about how Danny was a hard worker and a valued colleague and, okay, straight and maybe a little bit homophobic, but a good person at heart, really. Kris had made sure the incident with Allison hadn't been put on record, so there was no way this guy could know about it, except from hearsay, and everyone knew you couldn't rely on gossip. "Oh," he said, a bit weakly, which was fully justified under the circumstances, he felt.

"Either your parents were sadists, or your name is Kris Allen."

Kris stared. It seemed impossible the other man didn't recognize him - granted, the lighting in the bar hadn't been that good, but they'd moved to Kris's apartment pretty quickly, 'for coffee', the guy'd said and then Kris'd figured 'why the hell not?' and actually made him some.

It had felt a little unreal, to make coffee for someone whose name he didn't even know.


Just when Adam'd thought his day'd been beginning to look up a little again, it had to turn out the man whose office's budget Adam was supposed to cut by one salary was his one-night stand from yesterday.

Luckily, Kris seemed as flummoxed as Adam felt - he didn't even crack a smile at Adam's weak joke.

"Your name isn't Katy, right?" Adam asked, to be sure.

"No," Kris said, still looking dazed. "No, I'm Kris."

"Adam Lambert."

For a few moments, Adam thought he might get out of this after all, but then Kris went back to looking pissed and said: "You had no right to talk like that to Danny!"

Adam probably should have taken that as his cue to explain that, actually, he had every right, maybe mixing in something slightly apologetic about how Danny'd pushed his buttons. Instead, what he said was: "Jealous?"

Kris gaped at him. Adam remembered what those lips had looked like, wrapped around his cock - which was, okay, a nice memory (a really nice memory) but also so very much not what he should be thinking about right now. Last night had been play - today was work.


"Yeah, because I'd really love to be sexually harassed by someone who can get me fired," Kris snapped, truly pissed off now. "Is that how you interview someone about their work?"

When Danny'd told him and Katy what had happened, Kris's first thought had been that Danny was exaggerating - or misinterpreting something perfectly innocent. He'd been ready to be sympathetic but stern; Danny couldn't expect people to always accomodate him.

Then Danny had gone over the interview again, in detail, and Kris had sort of lost it a little.

"You're not answering the question," came the cool reply.

Kris took a few deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down, to look at this rationally. "Of course I'm not jealous." Stunned he'd actually been attracted to such a jerk, maybe. "You're not that much of a catch, anyway."

That had an effect, at least; Adam stopped looking all calm and collected. "Really? Last night wasn't that good for you, then?"

Kris shrugged, trying to act and sound casual. "It was okay, I guess. Not bad."

The sex had been pretty much amazing - but then the morning after, waking up with a splitting headache and all alone? Not so much. That wasn't what Kris wanted out of a relationship.


"Not bad?" Adam repeated disbelieving. He wondered only for a moment if it might be true, then he saw the way Kris's tongue darted out to lick his lips and barely managed not to grin. "Then I guess I don't need to ask you to dinner tonight, huh?" If Kris wanted to play games, Adam'd be happy to oblige.

Kris looked stubborn, his mouth frozen in a hard line. It made Adam want to kiss those lips again.

"I don't go on dates with people who harass my colleagues," Kris said.

"That's fine then, since I planned on firing him anyway." Adam wondered why he seemed so hell-bent on making Kris more angry; granted, the whole part where Kris's face went all flushed was sort of a turn-on, but there were other ways to get Kris all hot and bothered, and unlike what Adam was doing right now, those other ways might actually get Adam laid.

"You - " Kris started, before shutting up, probably because he realized Adam could, in fact, do what he'd said. "I don't want you to fire Danny. Or anyone else who's working here."

Adam shrugged. "Tough luck." Most people who made it to a position in management got where they were by being more cut-throat and ruthless than the competition; Kris appeared to be an exception to that rule. It was sort of cute and it made Adam like Kris a whole lot, only it didn't change the facts.

"You don't understand," Kris said, putting his hand on Adam's arm. "I really don't want you to fire anyone."


Kris had no idea what he was doing. On the other hand, Adam looked like he didn't know either, and as far as Kris was concerned, anything that confused Adam could only be a good thing. Besides, it felt kind of nice to rub his hands over Adam's body, for all that it was covered by a suit.

"Maybe we can work something out, huh?" He'd picked up Adam the night before; he could totally do this - except that last night had been at a bar, and Adam'd wanted to be picked up. "I mean, you give me something I want, I give you something you want - sounds fair to me."

"Um," Adam said, sinking down into a chair. "Look, Kris, I - "

Kris figured sitting down had been a fatal tactical mistake, really - it offered Kris a perfect opportunity to crawl into Adam's lap and from there, he pretty much had free access to all kinds of interesting places.

"Do we have a deal?" he asked.

Adam was shaking his head, which Kris decided not to take as a 'no'. It probably wasn't quite intended as a request to move his hands a little lower, but if Adam'd wanted Kris's hands anywhere, he ought to have simply said so.

"Do we have a deal?" Kris repeated.

"Please." Not quite the word Kris'd been hoping to hear. Clearly, a little more 'convincing' was called for. "Yes," Adam said. "Yes. Please, Kris."

"Great." Kris straightened his tie, then looked down at Adam and straightened his tie, too. "You can pick me up here for dinner at seven."


"What do you mean: you quit?" Simon asked. "You can't quit."

Adam sighed. "Look, you guys hired me to figure out which people you could fire, right?"

There was a bit of hemming and hawing.

"Turns out: I'm one of those people," Adam said. "So I'm firing me."

"You did finish reviewing Allen's office, didn't you?"

Adam glanced over to the other side of the bed. Kris looked almost angelic when he was asleep.

"Yes, I did. They're all great."

Comments

[pinkeurogirl.livejournal.com]

so funny!! what a coincidence. awkward!

[misura.livejournal.com]

Only in Harlequin plots, I'm sure ... *g*

Works out all right for both of them in the end, though.

[stormybear30.livejournal.com]

Oh sneaky Kris...I like it and I loved this. Great job!!!

[misura.livejournal.com]

Hee! I wrote that scene and I stared at the screen and went kind of 'er, wait, can I really do that?'. But. It was too much fun to change it once I'd put it in so ... happy to hear you liked it!

[jeweledvixen.livejournal.com]

Kris is so sneaky! He saved all his colleagues and got his man, too. Way to go, Kris! :D

[misura.livejournal.com]

It's a Kris thing, I think. :-)

Happy you liked him in this!

[thrace-adams.livejournal.com]

OH awkward! Great job.

[misura.livejournal.com]

In real life: extremely awkward.

In a Harlequin plot: just a perfect set-up for a romantic relationship? *g*

Thank you!

[kira-dark-wing.livejournal.com]

HeHe! *giggles* sneaky!Kris is Sneaky!

[misura.livejournal.com]

Sneaky!Kris is very sneaky - but also still Kris, so I'm sure Adam doesn't mind too much. *g*

Happy this one made you giggle.

[cydsa.livejournal.com]

very cute hun!!!

I wish I could get my fic finished.

*runs off to tackle fic*

[misura.livejournal.com]

They are, I think. *g*

Good luck tackling your plotbunny - remember that sometimes, carrots may work better than a big stick. ;)

[perriotoi.livejournal.com]

Cute! Kris is so sneaky. I assume Adam won't have a problem finding a job? :)

[misura.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And um, yes, I think that's a safe assumption to make. ;)

[wikken.livejournal.com]

Fun storyline:)

[misura.livejournal.com]

Thank you! (The prompt provided rather most of it, so I can't take too much credit there. *g*)

[misura.livejournal.com]

This was written for a Harlequin fic fest so um, yes - I tried to hit at least a few of the tropes fitting the genre. (Although please don't ask me who was 'the typical Harlequin heroine' and who was 'the typical Harlequin male' because um.)

Happy to hear it managed to amuse. :)

[guylinergirl.livejournal.com]

Aww. This is too adorable. :3
Go sneaky!Kris! :)
Also, I love the way you wrote Katy's character. :)

[misura.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! It was a lot of fun to cast Kris as a sneaky guy - and Katy as his long-suffering secretary.

[misura.livejournal.com]

Adam would want him any other way, I'm sure - but this way seemed fun to write? ;)