Adam jabbed Kris in the side with an elbow to interrupt him and said, "Okay, so I am giving you fair warning here, the next time you say one word about how I deserved it, or how sorry you are, or for that matter just spend your interview time going off on how awesome I am, I am going to be so totally overcome with love for you that I am going to have to kiss you."

The tentacles looked almost like jewelry, sort of iridescent-shiny blue and purple, speckled with pale silvery spots, and they wound around Adam's wrists and up into his palms and coiled there, like small glittery snakes.

"So what's the problem?" Elizabeth asked. "They won't talk to us unless we sing first," John said.

"So what's the problem?" Elizabeth asked. "They won't talk to us unless we sing first," John said.

Kris wasn't brand-new at the substitute gig, but it was still a little unsettling to walk into the office his first day at the new school, and have the secretary look him up and down and say, "Oh, you are going to be eaten alive."

David stared up at him as he came to the table, and then Cook put a hand on David's shoulder and leaned over him. There was a really—really—weird moment when David thought for a second that Cook was about to—was going to—and David's stomach squeezed into a tiny knot, but Cook was just reaching over to grab the jacket he'd left on his seat.

Kris stopped taking slaves to his bed after his father died; he let them think it was grief, and then he let them think it was the burden of ruling, but he'd hated it all along.

The strategy had not included getting drunk himself and losing all sense of timing and being the tawdry and expensive rebound sex.

Adam jabbed Kris in the side with an elbow to interrupt him and said, "Okay, so I am giving you fair warning here, the next time you say one word about how I deserved it, or how sorry you are, or for that matter just spend your interview time going off on how awesome I am, I am going to be so totally overcome with love for you that I am going to have to kiss you."

"Megan!" Kris said. "He's my TA. I'm not going to—"

It just wasn't like that.

"I thought it was going to be an ice cream maker or something," Kris said.

Kris just laughed. "Do you get—we're talking twenty thousand pounds at least just to clear the debts?" "Yes," Anoop said. "There's a way." "Who do I have to kill?" Kris said, dryly. "Not kill," Anoop said. "Marry."

Real Forever If: Excerpt:The main thing he'd been thinking, that whole last week, was that when it was over, he'd finally be able to breathe again. He didn't know what else could've been making him feel so weird, the awful tightness in his chest every time he was in the same room with Cook, the way his stomach just kept clenching up and jumping. Spellbound: in which cook gets his own prince.

pirates!

"At least we don't have to do the walk of shame?" Adam said.

The main thing he'd been thinking, that whole last week, was that when it was over, he'd finally be able to breathe again. He didn't know what else could've been making him feel so weird, the awful tightness in his chest every time he was in the same room with Cook, the way his stomach just kept clenching up and jumping.

Wherein there is magic, daring rescues, accidental kissing, not-so-accidental kissing, Clive Davis is evil, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Adam pushed himself up and loomed up over Kris, his eyes heavy-lidded in glitter and shadow, predatory and smiling. Written for queenbitchfest, inspired by "Ziggy Stardust".

Megan had been calling them zombies from the get-go; after the third one, while Adam was busy puking his guts all over the sidewalk, she went around to all of them and hissed, "Listen, they're zombies, do you get it?"

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." — Hunter S. Thompson

The party was sprawled across nine different rooms, and Kris ended up getting detoured half a dozen times before he finally managed to track down the bar and get Adam and Katy's drinks and a beer for him.