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harlequinkradamTitle: When Life Gives You Roses: a Romantic Comedy With Guns, Girls and Gardening
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misura
Rating: PG-13
Prompt #: 17
Disclaimer: This never happened in this universe.
Notes: Complicated prompt is complicated. So um, I simplified it a bit - specifically the Lila and Sam plot, which turned into a minor subplot. Also: Kris's suspicion of Adam lasts all of er five seconds? (Look, it's Kris. Meeting Adam.) Also: be warned for a fair bit of crack and a sex scene that gets interrupted right before it gets good.
17. Kris is a security specialist and an Allen through and through. His eccentric, rather dubious family runs an Atlantic City spa that's just this side of legit. So Kris isn't inclined to trust handsome, charming Adam Lambert when he shows up claiming to be related to Lila, the girl the Allen family is about to adopt. But Adam is Lila's uncle and one of the famously rich and snooty Boston Lamberts.
Adam's search for his brother has led him to news of his death, and to a niece he's never met. But someone else has also tracked Lila down—someone who never wanted the child to be found. Adam is determined to protect Sam and find out what really happened to his brother. And Kris Allen is just the man to help him do it.
.01
The first time Kris Allen saw Adam Lambert, he didn't. Sure, he noticed the guy - tall, dark and not so much handsome as outright hot. Which, given that he was standing in the lobby of the hotel meant he was either a guest there, way out of Kris's price range, or both.
None of those three scenarios included a scene where Kris would walk up to him for an introduction.
Kris wasn't an idiot, to make a fool out of himself over a killer body that was not so much covered as complimented by a tight pair of leather pants and a too tight t-shirt that looked cheap and had probably cost several hundred dollars. He also wasn't going to drool over a pretty face with lips that looked extremely kissable, and eyes that looked like windows to a cloudless soul, and a nose that was - well, nothing poetic came to mind about the nose as of yet, but Kris was sure he'd think of something.
"Have an affair with him," Katy said.
Kris blinked and turned his head. "Sorry, what?"
"That guy everybody thought my cousin was sleeping with? She didn't even have an affair with him."
"Oh." Kris vaguely remembered said cousin - although Katy had a lot of cousins, most of them tall, bad-tempered and not so much intimidating as terrifying. Of course, that was just the women; most of the guys were sort of like Kris - except that a lot of them had moved to Canada.
"She actually married him." Katy was sort of an exception to the rule. She was blonde, not tall and cheerful. Some people had said she should have been born a man. Kris's mom said that some people were idiots, and that there was only one cure for that disease - although she also pointed out that they'd only put in the new carpet three months ago, and that some stains were really hard to get out.
Kris's mom approved of Katy. "Oh," Kris said. "Wow."
Happily, Katy's mom didn't much approve of Kris. "I know," Katy said. "Isn't it awful? I mean: married?"
Kris's mom thought Katy's mom was too critical. Sure, Kris wasn't a great cook, or an awesome home-decorator, or a handy handyman, but (as she was fond of telling people) Kris did have some good, solid, male skills. Well, one. "That's pretty big." Kris gardened.
"No member of my family has gotten married for years," Katy said. "Decades. Centuries. And there comes idiot cousin Irma, who seduces some rich guy in the fine family tradition but then actually decides that oh no, she can't be happy living in sin - she must have a wedding."
Kris thought weddings were neat, actually. He wasn't going to get one, of course, being an Allen, but the general concept, the idea of people promising to be loyal unto death - not because they were being held at gunpoint, or because they owed you money, or because you were compelling them in some other way, but because they loved you? That was kind of romantic.
"This was a while ago, right?" Kris asked.
Katy shrugged, still looking disgusted. "Yeah, but they found the papers a few days ago. Turns out she had a kid. Raised by some wholesome family living on a farm - think Smallville only without the aliens and Lex Luthor living next door."
The Allens didn't have a lot of use for science, but aside from that, Kris thought the comparison between the two families wasn't that far-fetched. Rich, powerful, not always quite keeping to the spirit of the law ...
"Anyway," Katy said. "I thought you should probably know."
"Um, why?" Kris had been about seven around the time Cousin Irma'd decided to have a scandalous wedding instead of a proper affair. He didn't remember her very well at all - probably because once people started getting all respectable, they weren't proper Allens anymore as far as the family was concerned. You couldn't be respectable and still be an Allen. Respectable was what other people were, usually people whose money somehow disappeared and somehow showed up again in the pockets of someone whose last name was Allen.
"You know why."
"If I knew, why would I be asking?" Sometimes, Kris thought Katy liked him. Other times, such as now, she looked at him more the way you'd look at a kid brother.
Katy glanced at the lobby, where Adam was still waiting for something or someone - Kris thought that as a hotel-employee, maybe he should go over and ask. Just to be polite.
"Because I figure it might be a little awkward when you run into her and don't know who she is. I mean," Katy said, lowering her voice, "what with you having offed her dad and all that."
"It was an accident," Kris said.
"Sure it was, honey." Katy leaned over and gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek Kris wasn't going to think of as a kiss, because the implication of Katy kissing him because she thought he'd killed someone were entirely too disturbing. "Said so in the newspaper."
*
The cute guy who Adam'd been convinced had been checking him out was totally making out with what was probably not his sister, neither of them seeming to care Adam was right there and hel-lo, not really here to see a little not-that-hot, kind of PG-13 rated girl-on-boy action.
Adam tried to comfort himself with the thought that now at least he'd have something to fuel a fantasy or two - he'd just put himself in the place of the girl - only it really didn't work that way, sort of like watching straight porn when you were gay wasn't so much a turn-on as a reminder of what you weren't really missing. Casablanca, yes - Girl With Unlikely Big Boobs Meets Guy With Uncomfortably Huge Dick Who Regularly Overdoses on Steroids, no thank you.
He sighed, took off his sunglasses, then decided to put them on again, the better to pretend he wasn't watching Cute Straight Guy locking lips with Cute Blonde Girl.
The hotel looked nice, no argument there. It shouldn't be too much of a hardship to spend a few days here, provided he'd be able to stay out of trouble.
Adam mentally snorted. Federal agent staying in a hotel for the rich and infamous, run by the richest and most infamous family of them all? No potential for trouble there at all. He'd be lucky if he wasn't going to run into anyone he'd tried to put behind bars.
Clearly, the best strategy would be to stay in his room as much as possible. On the other hand, this was supposed to be a vacation of sorts, so Adam'd figured that maybe if he could get a little company, staying in his room for most of the day might translate to doing something fun, rather than acting like a hermit.
Cute Guy had looked promising - Adam hadn't immediately recognized him, and he seemed to work here as staff, so with any luck, Adam figured he wasn't a career criminal. Too bad he was straight.
"Uncle Adam?" someone said, and Adam was pretty much completely sure that wasn't addressed at him, seeing as how he didn't have any nieces that he knew of. He did turn around to see who was talking though, perhaps to tell someone they were mistaking him for someone else.
And then he saw the girl and figured that yeah, maybe not so much. It was in the eyes, mostly.
'I would just like you to check something out,' his father'd said. 'You'll know it when you see it.'
Not so much an 'it' as a 'her', it seemed.
'You deserve a break anyway,' his mother'd coaxed - and she'd been absolutely right, Adam thought; he definitely deserved a break.
Sadly, it didn't look like he was going to get one any time soon.
*
Kris wasn't quite sure what had happened - his brain seemed to have short-circuited or something like that, because one moment Katy was hugging him and the next one he was slumping against the wall, feeling sort of dizzy while Katy was talking to the hot guy Kris had promised himself he wasn't going to talk to, which was probably okay, what with Katy being a woman and all.
It took him a few seconds to realize there was someone else in the reception are as well. It was more that he was still a bit woozy than that she was hard to miss, really. She wasn't hard to miss. She was hard not to miss.
"You're Allison's uncle?" Katy asked, her body held in a posture Kris identified as 'I Am An Attractive Young Woman And You Want To Tell Me Everything I Want To Know'.
"Adam Lambert," the guy said, holding out his hand.
Katy relaxed slightly, smoothly slipping into 'I Am Cute and You Should Not Believe All the Stories People Tell About Me' (which were all true, as far as Kris knew). "Call me Katy," she said.
"I'm Kris," Kris said.
Adam didn't seem to hear. "Pleased to meet you," he told Katy, smiling back at her in a way that made Kris want to march over there and demand what he thought he was doing. Kris'd have done it, too, except that the wall was still sort of comfortable, nice and steady.
"Shall we all go for a cup of coffee in the coffee room?" Katy proposed brightly.
"Actually, could I talk to my ... niece alone for a few moments?" Adam asked. "It's been - well, no, in fact I've never met her before today, so ... "
"Of course!" Katy beamed at him.
Adam beamed back. Allison looked from one to the other, frowning slightly. Kris felt like there was something he should be remembering about Adam, something Katy'd said before she hadn't kissed him.
"Coffee room is that way." Katy pointed.
Adam beamed at her some more, and then he and Allison headed for the coffeeroom, and Katy came hurrying back to Kris, no longer beaming.
"Good thinking staying in the background. There's something very suspicious about that guy."
"He's sort of hot," Kris said.
"Come on, let's go hear what they're talking about," Katy said.
.02
Cute Guy's name was Kris - Not Cute Girl's name was Katy. And Adam's niece's name was Allison.
Allison Lambert. That didn't sound too bad. Better than Allison Allen, at any rate, which sounded kind of weird. Adam figured maybe that had been the point, though.
Maybe, but probably not. His brother hadn't been much of a rebel - not like Adam. Granted, there'd been the whole thing where he'd sort of vanished and then popped up again just in time to prevent the family from organizing a funeral. Instead, he'd told them they'd missed a wedding.
Adam still didn't know if his parents had been more upset about the disappearing act or about the wedding they hadn't been invited to. Adam'd been glad his brother'd still been alive, and he hadn't expected an invitation to the wedding anyway. Not after he'd made an arrest at the last wedding someone'd invited him to.
It wasn't always easy to combine one's career with having a family.
Currently, his brother was missing again and for some reason his father hadn't wanted to share with Adam, his parents seemed to be under the impression that this time, it was because he'd died. Or rather: because he'd been murdered and someone'd gotten rid of the body.
Adam wished he could believe they were just being paranoid.
"Hey."
Then again, he'd also wished Kris had been making out with him instead of Not Cute Girl yesterday. The universe did not seem to be in a wish-granting mood.
"Hey." Adam smiled anyway - a cute guy was still a cute guy. "You working in the garden today?" The gloves and coverall were kind of a give-away.
"Yeah," Kris said, then blushed for no reason. "I've got a bit of a green thumb."
"Roses look lovely." Adam wasn't much of a gardener; he lived in an apartment and he'd given up on keeping either pets or plants a long time ago, given that even cactuses seemed to die on him.
It didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a nice garden when he saw one, just that he couldn't put names on most of the flowers that were in it.
"Oh." Kris looked uncomfortable. Maybe the roses were taken care of by someone else?
"The whole garden looks great, really," Adam said quickly.
"I should get to work," Kris said.
*
Kris had heard that in Japan, people believed that by burying a dead body under a cherry tree, you'd get prettier blossoms, because the tree would suck up the blood or something like that. It had sounded like a lot of nonsense to Kris at the time.
Now, though, thanks to Adam's comment, he wondered.
Roses weren't cherry trees, obviously, but maybe the same principle applied. Maybe Adam had meant to imply that he knew what Kris had done, that he was here to do - well, something.
"Oh, hi Kris," Katy said. "I'm just showing Allison around the garden."
"Hi." Allison smiled.
"Hi." Kris made a sincere attempt to smile back. Judging by Katy's expression, it didn't work.
"The roses are lovely," Allison said.
"Have you seen the daffodils yet?" Kris asked. "We've also got a vegetable garden - we don't use any of them for the hotel food ... yet, but I'm working on it."
"Kris likes gardening," Katy said.
"Cool," Allison said.
"Most guys in the family like cooking or decorating or plumbing or fixing things, but not Kris."
"Cool," Allison said, again. She sounded sincere.
"He's very busy," Katy said. "Big garden to take care of."
As Kris watched her pull Allison along in the direction of the maze (about the most boring part of the garden, if you asked him), he reflected he'd probably never understand women.
Not that he was doing any better with men.
*
Adam spotted Kris again as he was headed for dinner - he hadn't yet decided on whether he wanted to get it at the restaurant, the pizzeria, the grillroom, the countryroom or the steakhouse, but then he saw Kris headed for the garden (again) and decided to take a stab at becoming friends.
"Kris! Are you still working?" Kris turned around, looking not very happy to see him. Adam wondered why; he hadn't said anything that inappropriate this morning, had he? "Because, you know, I think there's a law against that." Adam smiled to indicate he was only teasing.
"Ha ha." Kris's smile was nervous. It was still a smile, though, so Adam counted it as a win.
"Can I invite you to dinner?" Adam asked. "As friends?"
"Friends?" Kris looked confused.
"Not as me trying to pick you up," Adam clarified, then wished he hadn't. "I mean, I'm gay, but that's not why I'm asking." Open mouth, insert foot. Then rinse and repeat with other foot. "I mean I like you."
"I'm gay, too?" Kris said.
O-kay, now Adam was the one being confused, because he was pretty sure he hadn't imagined that scene in the lobby. "So, would you like to grab something to eat with me?"
"Sure," Kris said. "I guess."
Enthusiasm, this wasn't. It was kind of refreshing, in a way, Adam reflected, as Kris led him in the direction of the grillroom. Kris was hard to read; friendly at one moment, then distant the next.
It wasn't an act - Adam knew 'playing hard to get' when he saw it, as well as he knew 'being a tease'.
"They've got a great selection of vegetables in this place," Kris said, sitting down.
Adam wondered if that was a hint to go vegetarian here. "Anything you grew yourself?" he asked.
"No," Kris said.
Adam ordered two mixed vegetarian grills.
.03
Kris didn't think it had been a good idea to have dinner with Adam. It had been fun, the food had been great, Adam had looked cute with soy sauce on his nose, and Kris had been able to make a few jokes that had made him laugh. Normally, this would be the morning when Kris'd be freaking out about his family finding out he had a crush and scaring off his potential new boyfriend.
Instead, this was the morning when Kris was freaking out about his family finding out he had a crush and thinking the guy was good enough to be dating him.
"It's a good match, you know," Katy said.
"Yes?" Okay, so Kris didn't know a thing about Adam, except that he was hot and funny and that he looked cute with soy sauce on his nose.
"The Lambert family? From Boston? They're not the Allens, of course, but they're doing all right. Smaller, but that's what you get when you've got mostly boys for two generations."
"They're criminals?" For some reason, that hadn't really been the vibe Kris'd been getting from Adam.
"You shouldn't make any decisions until you know what he's like in the sack, of course," Katy said.
"Um, what about his brother? Allison's dad?" It had come back to Kris at around the third glass of wine last night that yeah, Adam was the brother of that guy.
"What about him?" Katy asked. "He's gone - nobody's seen him for years - nothing to do with us. You're golden, Kris. If he was a girl, I'd be totally jealous."
"Lucky me," Kris said, meaning it.
"They're playing live music in the ballroom tonight. You should dress up nice and ask him to dance."
"I don't think he's the type to like that sort of stuff."
"You, all dressed up? Trust me, he'll love it. Careful he doesn't drool on you."
*
"This is nice," Adam said. He was glad his mother had insisted on his bringing a good suit. He didn't feel too comfortable in it - at least not until someone looked at him the way Kris had, all wide-eyed, honest delight. "I think the last time I did something like this was at prom."
Dancing wasn't like riding a bicycle; you got rusty if you didn't do it for a long time.
"I went to prom with Katy," Kris said, giving off mixed signals again. Or okay, Adam thought his body was saying 'yes', but his lips were saying: 'I took a cute girl to prom' and Adam knew damn well that in cases like this, what was said out loud went.
"You've known her a long time, huh?"
"Well, she beat up my boyfriend," Kris said. "So then she felt like she sort of had to, you know?"
Adam had never felt obliged to take someone out on a date because he'd beaten up their boyfriend. He might have beaten up someone's boyfriend because he'd felt obliged to do so after he'd taken that someone out on a date, but that was hardly the same thing. "I see," he said.
"So," Kris said. "Um. Look, about your brother."
"I don't want to talk about my brother." Adam wanted to talk about Kris.
"You know," Kris said, "I really like you a lot."
Adam didn't think they were supposed to be quite this closely pressed together, but then again, it had been a while since prom. "I like you a lot, too."
Kris made this happy, humming sort of sound and then he sighed and Adam discovered that actually, Kris was perfectly capable of plastering himself pretty much all over Adam.
"We could get a room?" In a room, they'd be able to get naked.
"Haven't you already got one?" Kris mumbled.
"Oh," Adam said. "Right."
*
Going to Adam's room and taking off his shirt was definitely also a bad idea, but Kris figured it was his week for bad ideas or something and anyway, if he was going to regret this later, he might as well make the most of this now, which meant taking off his shirt. (He was aware, on some level, that his logic was a little flawed there, only he'd decided now was not the time to worry about that.)
Kris was happy to see he'd been right about Adam's body that first time he'd seen him in the lobby.
Also: Adam had gotten one of the good rooms with the size of bed big enough for two people. Kris hadn't wanted to ruin the mood by saying something about it earlier, and now it appeared that had been just as well, since there wasn't going to be a problem there either.
He'd offered to talk about Adam's brother, and Adam'd turned him down. Kris figured that meant he'd done what he could, really - if Adam found out later, Kris could virtuously point to their conversation as proof that it was Adam's own fault Kris hadn't told him.
Of course, there'd still be the fact of what Kris had done. No way to turn that back.
"Kris," Adam said and okay, Kris had to stop thinking right now.
Not that he thought it would be possible to not stop thinking with Adam looking at him the way he did - except that Kris's mind just seemed unable to shut up; thoughts about Adam's brother just kept running through his head, even when Adam was really doing his best to melt Kris's brains.
And then someone kicked in the door to Adam's room and yelled: "Freeze!"
.04
"Um," Kris said.
"What the fuck?" Adam asked, a bit quicker to catch on and a lot more pissed off.
"He was going to kill you," Katy said. She was holding a gun, which was sort of like giving an elephant a baseball-bat, Adam thought. Katy wasn't the kind of person who needed a gun to be intimidating.
On the other hand, if you planned to shoot someone, a gun came in handy.
"Excuse me?" Adam knew he should probably try to be more soothing, play for time until he could get to his own gun and - well. Kris probably wouldn't exactly come swooning into his arms if Adam shot his psycho not-girlfriend.
"I was going to have sex!" Kris said. "Great sex, even!" He looked at Adam.
Adam thought he'd probably be able to disarm Katy by shooting her arm or something like that. There'd be a lot of blood and she'd need to go to the hospital and Kris'd probably sleep in a chair at her bedside or something, but eventually, they'd get back to the great sex.
"Don't lie to me, Kris," Katy said. "I know you killed his brother - hell, everyone knows you killed his brother." She lowered the gun by perhaps half an inch. "Look, I know it probably wasn't your idea. I know you're not a killer. But I can't let you do this again. For your sake as much as his."
Kris looked ... not like he had no idea what she was talking about. "Kris?" Adam asked, feeling cold.
"It was an accident," Kris said.
Katy sighed and put away her gun.
"An accident," Adam repeated.
"Only then Dad said we should hide the body, because if his family found out he'd died at the hotel, they'd never believe it'd been an accident. And he was right!" Kris said, looking almost angry now. "You don't believe me! And you - " Kris turned to Katy. "What's with the gun-waving?"
"I'm with the CIA," Katy said.
Adam wanted to cry.
"You're with the CIA?" Kris asked, voice shrill. "The CIA?"
Katy winced. "Yell a bit harder, will you? I don't think they've quite heard you in the kitchen. Yes, I'm with the CIA. So what? Someone needs to keep an eye on this family - why not me?"
Adam wasn't going to cry in front of someone who was with CIA. Or laugh until he cried. There was still the matter of his brother, after all. And Allison.
"Where'd you hide the body?" he asked Kris.
"I buried it under the roses," Kris said. "And then everyone started telling me how great they looked."
"What kind of accident did he have?" Katy asked.
"Heart-attack," Kris said. "I think." Katy arched an eyebrow. Adam wondered why she wasn't wearing sunglasses. He'd thought those pretty much came with the job. "He was just dead, okay?"
"We'll dig up the body and I'll have the lab guys take a look," Katy told Adam.
Adam reached for his jacket, fished out his badge. "FBI," he said. "Don't bother - we've got a lab, too."
"Am I the only person in this room who's not secretly working for the government?" Kris asked.
"I don't know - are you?" Katy asked. "If you really didn't kill Evan Lambert, we might have a job for you. If you did - well, then we might still be able to work something out."
Adam reconsidered shooting her. "I'm not going to spy on my own family!" Kris said.
"My own family's pretty much disinherited me." Adam'd never felt happy about that before. Kris turned his head to look at him. "Well, okay, so they have disinherited me," Adam said. "Which means Allison gets it all, if she wants it."
"She seems a nice kid," Kris said a bit hesitantly.
"Are you kidding me? She's a great kid," Adam said. "I can't wait for her to meet my mom. No way that girl's going to put up with anyone telling her what to do or how to act. Put her in charge of the Lambert fortune and in two months she'll bring the whole criminal empire down."
"Provided she survives that long," Katy put in.
"With the FBI, the CIA and Kris here to watch her back, I'm sure she'll be absolutely fine," Adam said cheerfully.
Katy opened her mouth, closed it again. Blushed, confirming Adam's until then only very vague suspicion. He'd thought that tour of the maze had taken rather long.
"Fantastic," Kris said. "Now, can I get dressed?"
"Leave," Adam told Katy. "I've got handcuffs - I'll use them if I think I have to."
"What?" Kris said. "Wait."
"Hurt him and I'll break your kneecaps," Katy said. "For starters. That said: have fun."
"We will."
Kris looked worried. Not a good look on him, Adam decided. "Don't you want to wait for - "
"I thought about it." For five seconds, maybe. "I decided to trust you. So that just leaves the question of whether or not you trust me, too."
"Well," Kris said, "I sort of have this rule about no handcuffs on the first date."
"You could put them on me?" Adam suggested. "Or we could just skip them. This time." He didn't think the thought of handcuffs turned off Kris completely.
"This time," Kris said.
Author:
misuraRating: PG-13
Prompt #: 17
Disclaimer: This never happened in this universe.
Notes: Complicated prompt is complicated. So um, I simplified it a bit - specifically the Lila and Sam plot, which turned into a minor subplot. Also: Kris's suspicion of Adam lasts all of er five seconds? (Look, it's Kris. Meeting Adam.) Also: be warned for a fair bit of crack and a sex scene that gets interrupted right before it gets good.
17. Kris is a security specialist and an Allen through and through. His eccentric, rather dubious family runs an Atlantic City spa that's just this side of legit. So Kris isn't inclined to trust handsome, charming Adam Lambert when he shows up claiming to be related to Lila, the girl the Allen family is about to adopt. But Adam is Lila's uncle and one of the famously rich and snooty Boston Lamberts.
Adam's search for his brother has led him to news of his death, and to a niece he's never met. But someone else has also tracked Lila down—someone who never wanted the child to be found. Adam is determined to protect Sam and find out what really happened to his brother. And Kris Allen is just the man to help him do it.
.01
The first time Kris Allen saw Adam Lambert, he didn't. Sure, he noticed the guy - tall, dark and not so much handsome as outright hot. Which, given that he was standing in the lobby of the hotel meant he was either a guest there, way out of Kris's price range, or both.
None of those three scenarios included a scene where Kris would walk up to him for an introduction.
Kris wasn't an idiot, to make a fool out of himself over a killer body that was not so much covered as complimented by a tight pair of leather pants and a too tight t-shirt that looked cheap and had probably cost several hundred dollars. He also wasn't going to drool over a pretty face with lips that looked extremely kissable, and eyes that looked like windows to a cloudless soul, and a nose that was - well, nothing poetic came to mind about the nose as of yet, but Kris was sure he'd think of something.
"Have an affair with him," Katy said.
Kris blinked and turned his head. "Sorry, what?"
"That guy everybody thought my cousin was sleeping with? She didn't even have an affair with him."
"Oh." Kris vaguely remembered said cousin - although Katy had a lot of cousins, most of them tall, bad-tempered and not so much intimidating as terrifying. Of course, that was just the women; most of the guys were sort of like Kris - except that a lot of them had moved to Canada.
"She actually married him." Katy was sort of an exception to the rule. She was blonde, not tall and cheerful. Some people had said she should have been born a man. Kris's mom said that some people were idiots, and that there was only one cure for that disease - although she also pointed out that they'd only put in the new carpet three months ago, and that some stains were really hard to get out.
Kris's mom approved of Katy. "Oh," Kris said. "Wow."
Happily, Katy's mom didn't much approve of Kris. "I know," Katy said. "Isn't it awful? I mean: married?"
Kris's mom thought Katy's mom was too critical. Sure, Kris wasn't a great cook, or an awesome home-decorator, or a handy handyman, but (as she was fond of telling people) Kris did have some good, solid, male skills. Well, one. "That's pretty big." Kris gardened.
"No member of my family has gotten married for years," Katy said. "Decades. Centuries. And there comes idiot cousin Irma, who seduces some rich guy in the fine family tradition but then actually decides that oh no, she can't be happy living in sin - she must have a wedding."
Kris thought weddings were neat, actually. He wasn't going to get one, of course, being an Allen, but the general concept, the idea of people promising to be loyal unto death - not because they were being held at gunpoint, or because they owed you money, or because you were compelling them in some other way, but because they loved you? That was kind of romantic.
"This was a while ago, right?" Kris asked.
Katy shrugged, still looking disgusted. "Yeah, but they found the papers a few days ago. Turns out she had a kid. Raised by some wholesome family living on a farm - think Smallville only without the aliens and Lex Luthor living next door."
The Allens didn't have a lot of use for science, but aside from that, Kris thought the comparison between the two families wasn't that far-fetched. Rich, powerful, not always quite keeping to the spirit of the law ...
"Anyway," Katy said. "I thought you should probably know."
"Um, why?" Kris had been about seven around the time Cousin Irma'd decided to have a scandalous wedding instead of a proper affair. He didn't remember her very well at all - probably because once people started getting all respectable, they weren't proper Allens anymore as far as the family was concerned. You couldn't be respectable and still be an Allen. Respectable was what other people were, usually people whose money somehow disappeared and somehow showed up again in the pockets of someone whose last name was Allen.
"You know why."
"If I knew, why would I be asking?" Sometimes, Kris thought Katy liked him. Other times, such as now, she looked at him more the way you'd look at a kid brother.
Katy glanced at the lobby, where Adam was still waiting for something or someone - Kris thought that as a hotel-employee, maybe he should go over and ask. Just to be polite.
"Because I figure it might be a little awkward when you run into her and don't know who she is. I mean," Katy said, lowering her voice, "what with you having offed her dad and all that."
"It was an accident," Kris said.
"Sure it was, honey." Katy leaned over and gave him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek Kris wasn't going to think of as a kiss, because the implication of Katy kissing him because she thought he'd killed someone were entirely too disturbing. "Said so in the newspaper."
*
The cute guy who Adam'd been convinced had been checking him out was totally making out with what was probably not his sister, neither of them seeming to care Adam was right there and hel-lo, not really here to see a little not-that-hot, kind of PG-13 rated girl-on-boy action.
Adam tried to comfort himself with the thought that now at least he'd have something to fuel a fantasy or two - he'd just put himself in the place of the girl - only it really didn't work that way, sort of like watching straight porn when you were gay wasn't so much a turn-on as a reminder of what you weren't really missing. Casablanca, yes - Girl With Unlikely Big Boobs Meets Guy With Uncomfortably Huge Dick Who Regularly Overdoses on Steroids, no thank you.
He sighed, took off his sunglasses, then decided to put them on again, the better to pretend he wasn't watching Cute Straight Guy locking lips with Cute Blonde Girl.
The hotel looked nice, no argument there. It shouldn't be too much of a hardship to spend a few days here, provided he'd be able to stay out of trouble.
Adam mentally snorted. Federal agent staying in a hotel for the rich and infamous, run by the richest and most infamous family of them all? No potential for trouble there at all. He'd be lucky if he wasn't going to run into anyone he'd tried to put behind bars.
Clearly, the best strategy would be to stay in his room as much as possible. On the other hand, this was supposed to be a vacation of sorts, so Adam'd figured that maybe if he could get a little company, staying in his room for most of the day might translate to doing something fun, rather than acting like a hermit.
Cute Guy had looked promising - Adam hadn't immediately recognized him, and he seemed to work here as staff, so with any luck, Adam figured he wasn't a career criminal. Too bad he was straight.
"Uncle Adam?" someone said, and Adam was pretty much completely sure that wasn't addressed at him, seeing as how he didn't have any nieces that he knew of. He did turn around to see who was talking though, perhaps to tell someone they were mistaking him for someone else.
And then he saw the girl and figured that yeah, maybe not so much. It was in the eyes, mostly.
'I would just like you to check something out,' his father'd said. 'You'll know it when you see it.'
Not so much an 'it' as a 'her', it seemed.
'You deserve a break anyway,' his mother'd coaxed - and she'd been absolutely right, Adam thought; he definitely deserved a break.
Sadly, it didn't look like he was going to get one any time soon.
*
Kris wasn't quite sure what had happened - his brain seemed to have short-circuited or something like that, because one moment Katy was hugging him and the next one he was slumping against the wall, feeling sort of dizzy while Katy was talking to the hot guy Kris had promised himself he wasn't going to talk to, which was probably okay, what with Katy being a woman and all.
It took him a few seconds to realize there was someone else in the reception are as well. It was more that he was still a bit woozy than that she was hard to miss, really. She wasn't hard to miss. She was hard not to miss.
"You're Allison's uncle?" Katy asked, her body held in a posture Kris identified as 'I Am An Attractive Young Woman And You Want To Tell Me Everything I Want To Know'.
"Adam Lambert," the guy said, holding out his hand.
Katy relaxed slightly, smoothly slipping into 'I Am Cute and You Should Not Believe All the Stories People Tell About Me' (which were all true, as far as Kris knew). "Call me Katy," she said.
"I'm Kris," Kris said.
Adam didn't seem to hear. "Pleased to meet you," he told Katy, smiling back at her in a way that made Kris want to march over there and demand what he thought he was doing. Kris'd have done it, too, except that the wall was still sort of comfortable, nice and steady.
"Shall we all go for a cup of coffee in the coffee room?" Katy proposed brightly.
"Actually, could I talk to my ... niece alone for a few moments?" Adam asked. "It's been - well, no, in fact I've never met her before today, so ... "
"Of course!" Katy beamed at him.
Adam beamed back. Allison looked from one to the other, frowning slightly. Kris felt like there was something he should be remembering about Adam, something Katy'd said before she hadn't kissed him.
"Coffee room is that way." Katy pointed.
Adam beamed at her some more, and then he and Allison headed for the coffeeroom, and Katy came hurrying back to Kris, no longer beaming.
"Good thinking staying in the background. There's something very suspicious about that guy."
"He's sort of hot," Kris said.
"Come on, let's go hear what they're talking about," Katy said.
.02
Cute Guy's name was Kris - Not Cute Girl's name was Katy. And Adam's niece's name was Allison.
Allison Lambert. That didn't sound too bad. Better than Allison Allen, at any rate, which sounded kind of weird. Adam figured maybe that had been the point, though.
Maybe, but probably not. His brother hadn't been much of a rebel - not like Adam. Granted, there'd been the whole thing where he'd sort of vanished and then popped up again just in time to prevent the family from organizing a funeral. Instead, he'd told them they'd missed a wedding.
Adam still didn't know if his parents had been more upset about the disappearing act or about the wedding they hadn't been invited to. Adam'd been glad his brother'd still been alive, and he hadn't expected an invitation to the wedding anyway. Not after he'd made an arrest at the last wedding someone'd invited him to.
It wasn't always easy to combine one's career with having a family.
Currently, his brother was missing again and for some reason his father hadn't wanted to share with Adam, his parents seemed to be under the impression that this time, it was because he'd died. Or rather: because he'd been murdered and someone'd gotten rid of the body.
Adam wished he could believe they were just being paranoid.
"Hey."
Then again, he'd also wished Kris had been making out with him instead of Not Cute Girl yesterday. The universe did not seem to be in a wish-granting mood.
"Hey." Adam smiled anyway - a cute guy was still a cute guy. "You working in the garden today?" The gloves and coverall were kind of a give-away.
"Yeah," Kris said, then blushed for no reason. "I've got a bit of a green thumb."
"Roses look lovely." Adam wasn't much of a gardener; he lived in an apartment and he'd given up on keeping either pets or plants a long time ago, given that even cactuses seemed to die on him.
It didn't mean he couldn't appreciate a nice garden when he saw one, just that he couldn't put names on most of the flowers that were in it.
"Oh." Kris looked uncomfortable. Maybe the roses were taken care of by someone else?
"The whole garden looks great, really," Adam said quickly.
"I should get to work," Kris said.
*
Kris had heard that in Japan, people believed that by burying a dead body under a cherry tree, you'd get prettier blossoms, because the tree would suck up the blood or something like that. It had sounded like a lot of nonsense to Kris at the time.
Now, though, thanks to Adam's comment, he wondered.
Roses weren't cherry trees, obviously, but maybe the same principle applied. Maybe Adam had meant to imply that he knew what Kris had done, that he was here to do - well, something.
"Oh, hi Kris," Katy said. "I'm just showing Allison around the garden."
"Hi." Allison smiled.
"Hi." Kris made a sincere attempt to smile back. Judging by Katy's expression, it didn't work.
"The roses are lovely," Allison said.
"Have you seen the daffodils yet?" Kris asked. "We've also got a vegetable garden - we don't use any of them for the hotel food ... yet, but I'm working on it."
"Kris likes gardening," Katy said.
"Cool," Allison said.
"Most guys in the family like cooking or decorating or plumbing or fixing things, but not Kris."
"Cool," Allison said, again. She sounded sincere.
"He's very busy," Katy said. "Big garden to take care of."
As Kris watched her pull Allison along in the direction of the maze (about the most boring part of the garden, if you asked him), he reflected he'd probably never understand women.
Not that he was doing any better with men.
*
Adam spotted Kris again as he was headed for dinner - he hadn't yet decided on whether he wanted to get it at the restaurant, the pizzeria, the grillroom, the countryroom or the steakhouse, but then he saw Kris headed for the garden (again) and decided to take a stab at becoming friends.
"Kris! Are you still working?" Kris turned around, looking not very happy to see him. Adam wondered why; he hadn't said anything that inappropriate this morning, had he? "Because, you know, I think there's a law against that." Adam smiled to indicate he was only teasing.
"Ha ha." Kris's smile was nervous. It was still a smile, though, so Adam counted it as a win.
"Can I invite you to dinner?" Adam asked. "As friends?"
"Friends?" Kris looked confused.
"Not as me trying to pick you up," Adam clarified, then wished he hadn't. "I mean, I'm gay, but that's not why I'm asking." Open mouth, insert foot. Then rinse and repeat with other foot. "I mean I like you."
"I'm gay, too?" Kris said.
O-kay, now Adam was the one being confused, because he was pretty sure he hadn't imagined that scene in the lobby. "So, would you like to grab something to eat with me?"
"Sure," Kris said. "I guess."
Enthusiasm, this wasn't. It was kind of refreshing, in a way, Adam reflected, as Kris led him in the direction of the grillroom. Kris was hard to read; friendly at one moment, then distant the next.
It wasn't an act - Adam knew 'playing hard to get' when he saw it, as well as he knew 'being a tease'.
"They've got a great selection of vegetables in this place," Kris said, sitting down.
Adam wondered if that was a hint to go vegetarian here. "Anything you grew yourself?" he asked.
"No," Kris said.
Adam ordered two mixed vegetarian grills.
.03
Kris didn't think it had been a good idea to have dinner with Adam. It had been fun, the food had been great, Adam had looked cute with soy sauce on his nose, and Kris had been able to make a few jokes that had made him laugh. Normally, this would be the morning when Kris'd be freaking out about his family finding out he had a crush and scaring off his potential new boyfriend.
Instead, this was the morning when Kris was freaking out about his family finding out he had a crush and thinking the guy was good enough to be dating him.
"It's a good match, you know," Katy said.
"Yes?" Okay, so Kris didn't know a thing about Adam, except that he was hot and funny and that he looked cute with soy sauce on his nose.
"The Lambert family? From Boston? They're not the Allens, of course, but they're doing all right. Smaller, but that's what you get when you've got mostly boys for two generations."
"They're criminals?" For some reason, that hadn't really been the vibe Kris'd been getting from Adam.
"You shouldn't make any decisions until you know what he's like in the sack, of course," Katy said.
"Um, what about his brother? Allison's dad?" It had come back to Kris at around the third glass of wine last night that yeah, Adam was the brother of that guy.
"What about him?" Katy asked. "He's gone - nobody's seen him for years - nothing to do with us. You're golden, Kris. If he was a girl, I'd be totally jealous."
"Lucky me," Kris said, meaning it.
"They're playing live music in the ballroom tonight. You should dress up nice and ask him to dance."
"I don't think he's the type to like that sort of stuff."
"You, all dressed up? Trust me, he'll love it. Careful he doesn't drool on you."
*
"This is nice," Adam said. He was glad his mother had insisted on his bringing a good suit. He didn't feel too comfortable in it - at least not until someone looked at him the way Kris had, all wide-eyed, honest delight. "I think the last time I did something like this was at prom."
Dancing wasn't like riding a bicycle; you got rusty if you didn't do it for a long time.
"I went to prom with Katy," Kris said, giving off mixed signals again. Or okay, Adam thought his body was saying 'yes', but his lips were saying: 'I took a cute girl to prom' and Adam knew damn well that in cases like this, what was said out loud went.
"You've known her a long time, huh?"
"Well, she beat up my boyfriend," Kris said. "So then she felt like she sort of had to, you know?"
Adam had never felt obliged to take someone out on a date because he'd beaten up their boyfriend. He might have beaten up someone's boyfriend because he'd felt obliged to do so after he'd taken that someone out on a date, but that was hardly the same thing. "I see," he said.
"So," Kris said. "Um. Look, about your brother."
"I don't want to talk about my brother." Adam wanted to talk about Kris.
"You know," Kris said, "I really like you a lot."
Adam didn't think they were supposed to be quite this closely pressed together, but then again, it had been a while since prom. "I like you a lot, too."
Kris made this happy, humming sort of sound and then he sighed and Adam discovered that actually, Kris was perfectly capable of plastering himself pretty much all over Adam.
"We could get a room?" In a room, they'd be able to get naked.
"Haven't you already got one?" Kris mumbled.
"Oh," Adam said. "Right."
*
Going to Adam's room and taking off his shirt was definitely also a bad idea, but Kris figured it was his week for bad ideas or something and anyway, if he was going to regret this later, he might as well make the most of this now, which meant taking off his shirt. (He was aware, on some level, that his logic was a little flawed there, only he'd decided now was not the time to worry about that.)
Kris was happy to see he'd been right about Adam's body that first time he'd seen him in the lobby.
Also: Adam had gotten one of the good rooms with the size of bed big enough for two people. Kris hadn't wanted to ruin the mood by saying something about it earlier, and now it appeared that had been just as well, since there wasn't going to be a problem there either.
He'd offered to talk about Adam's brother, and Adam'd turned him down. Kris figured that meant he'd done what he could, really - if Adam found out later, Kris could virtuously point to their conversation as proof that it was Adam's own fault Kris hadn't told him.
Of course, there'd still be the fact of what Kris had done. No way to turn that back.
"Kris," Adam said and okay, Kris had to stop thinking right now.
Not that he thought it would be possible to not stop thinking with Adam looking at him the way he did - except that Kris's mind just seemed unable to shut up; thoughts about Adam's brother just kept running through his head, even when Adam was really doing his best to melt Kris's brains.
And then someone kicked in the door to Adam's room and yelled: "Freeze!"
.04
"Um," Kris said.
"What the fuck?" Adam asked, a bit quicker to catch on and a lot more pissed off.
"He was going to kill you," Katy said. She was holding a gun, which was sort of like giving an elephant a baseball-bat, Adam thought. Katy wasn't the kind of person who needed a gun to be intimidating.
On the other hand, if you planned to shoot someone, a gun came in handy.
"Excuse me?" Adam knew he should probably try to be more soothing, play for time until he could get to his own gun and - well. Kris probably wouldn't exactly come swooning into his arms if Adam shot his psycho not-girlfriend.
"I was going to have sex!" Kris said. "Great sex, even!" He looked at Adam.
Adam thought he'd probably be able to disarm Katy by shooting her arm or something like that. There'd be a lot of blood and she'd need to go to the hospital and Kris'd probably sleep in a chair at her bedside or something, but eventually, they'd get back to the great sex.
"Don't lie to me, Kris," Katy said. "I know you killed his brother - hell, everyone knows you killed his brother." She lowered the gun by perhaps half an inch. "Look, I know it probably wasn't your idea. I know you're not a killer. But I can't let you do this again. For your sake as much as his."
Kris looked ... not like he had no idea what she was talking about. "Kris?" Adam asked, feeling cold.
"It was an accident," Kris said.
Katy sighed and put away her gun.
"An accident," Adam repeated.
"Only then Dad said we should hide the body, because if his family found out he'd died at the hotel, they'd never believe it'd been an accident. And he was right!" Kris said, looking almost angry now. "You don't believe me! And you - " Kris turned to Katy. "What's with the gun-waving?"
"I'm with the CIA," Katy said.
Adam wanted to cry.
"You're with the CIA?" Kris asked, voice shrill. "The CIA?"
Katy winced. "Yell a bit harder, will you? I don't think they've quite heard you in the kitchen. Yes, I'm with the CIA. So what? Someone needs to keep an eye on this family - why not me?"
Adam wasn't going to cry in front of someone who was with CIA. Or laugh until he cried. There was still the matter of his brother, after all. And Allison.
"Where'd you hide the body?" he asked Kris.
"I buried it under the roses," Kris said. "And then everyone started telling me how great they looked."
"What kind of accident did he have?" Katy asked.
"Heart-attack," Kris said. "I think." Katy arched an eyebrow. Adam wondered why she wasn't wearing sunglasses. He'd thought those pretty much came with the job. "He was just dead, okay?"
"We'll dig up the body and I'll have the lab guys take a look," Katy told Adam.
Adam reached for his jacket, fished out his badge. "FBI," he said. "Don't bother - we've got a lab, too."
"Am I the only person in this room who's not secretly working for the government?" Kris asked.
"I don't know - are you?" Katy asked. "If you really didn't kill Evan Lambert, we might have a job for you. If you did - well, then we might still be able to work something out."
Adam reconsidered shooting her. "I'm not going to spy on my own family!" Kris said.
"My own family's pretty much disinherited me." Adam'd never felt happy about that before. Kris turned his head to look at him. "Well, okay, so they have disinherited me," Adam said. "Which means Allison gets it all, if she wants it."
"She seems a nice kid," Kris said a bit hesitantly.
"Are you kidding me? She's a great kid," Adam said. "I can't wait for her to meet my mom. No way that girl's going to put up with anyone telling her what to do or how to act. Put her in charge of the Lambert fortune and in two months she'll bring the whole criminal empire down."
"Provided she survives that long," Katy put in.
"With the FBI, the CIA and Kris here to watch her back, I'm sure she'll be absolutely fine," Adam said cheerfully.
Katy opened her mouth, closed it again. Blushed, confirming Adam's until then only very vague suspicion. He'd thought that tour of the maze had taken rather long.
"Fantastic," Kris said. "Now, can I get dressed?"
"Leave," Adam told Katy. "I've got handcuffs - I'll use them if I think I have to."
"What?" Kris said. "Wait."
"Hurt him and I'll break your kneecaps," Katy said. "For starters. That said: have fun."
"We will."
Kris looked worried. Not a good look on him, Adam decided. "Don't you want to wait for - "
"I thought about it." For five seconds, maybe. "I decided to trust you. So that just leaves the question of whether or not you trust me, too."
"Well," Kris said, "I sort of have this rule about no handcuffs on the first date."
"You could put them on me?" Adam suggested. "Or we could just skip them. This time." He didn't think the thought of handcuffs turned off Kris completely.
"This time," Kris said.
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