It Was Always You

New Years

This is way overdue but hope you enjoy it anyway.

Christmas lights shine through the frost coated windows. The giant disco ball hanging above flashes neon beams to the beat of the music. A bedroom door shuts behind a tipsy couple toeing off their shoes.

Blake scans the crowd as he keeps a punch glass near his lips. Music blares throughout the gathering space but becomes muffled once it reaches the front porch. He knows because he's been out there a few times already to escape the chaos. He goes there now, joins a few others with cigarettes hanging from the corner of their mouths, their breath and smoke mixing with the chilly night air.

Blake sets his plastic cup on the railing and follows a set of headlights as it pulls in the driveway. The driver swerves the little sports car into a spot and steps out. Dark jeans hug his legs tightly to the ankle, and he pulls a beanie down over his ears. Blake's eyes follow Adam as he walks with arms huddled around his thin body to the stairs of the house.

The rockstar finally looks up and smiles when he sees Blake. "Long time no see, asshole."

Blake chuckles. "Good to see you too, buddy."

It's been a few weeks since they've seen each other. Once the show ended they all took some time off to be with their families and rest up before Carson's annual New Year's Eve party. Never small, it grows bigger and bigger each year. They all tease him that if he keeps it up pretty soon he's just going to have to buy a new house.

"Geez, sometimes I forget you're from Oklahoma and can stand this shit," Adam says, teeth clattering, arms still wrapped around his chest, "but I'm going inside before my balls freeze off."

Blake makes a what balls? joke and dumps the rest of his drink over the railing. Inside a wall of heat and music and chatter and the smell of alcohol hits him instantly. He waits for Adam at the coat rack, where he slips off his black coat and reveals a creamy blue sweater.

"Wadn't a party without you here, anyway," Blake says, raising his voice above the noise.

Adam sticks his nose in Blake's cup. "What're you drinking?"

"Vodka."

Adam raises an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

Blake gestures to the large container filled with the bright pink punch. Adam pours himself a glass and adds a tequila shot. He throws it back and grimaces as it burns down his throat.

He turns to Blake and smirks. "Now it's a party."

Someone tips the DJ to play Cotton Eyed Joe, and swarms of people gather on the designated dance floor, half of them dancing it right and the other half too drunk to care. Blake watches Adam watching the dancers, his eyes shiny from the bright lights, eagerness in his demeanor. Blake wonders if Adam will join them, but instead he downs his second tequila shot and walks away.

The song ends and people hoot and clap. The song that follows is slow and sort of dreamy, clearing the dance floor except for the experienced couples.

Blake finds Adam again standing by the food table.

"Wanna dance?" Adam asks, and he looks right at Blake when he says it and for a moment Blake thinks he's serious, until the corners of his lips turn up in a sly smile.

"I'm gonna need some of what yer drinkin' to ever dance with you," Blake responds, and Adam shoves a cookie in his mouth and laughs, that darn hiccupy laugh he seems to do only around Blake, the one that makes Blake's heart jump in his chest a little.

Carson finally makes it around to them and thanks them for coming. Adam replies with he wouldn't miss it. Carson has been doing this for years and everyone always manages to put aside their busy holiday schedules to come. Even Blake admits it's always a good time, even if it is basically hell frozen over by the end of the night, dragging into the wee morning hours of a new year.

Blake then challenges Adam to a game of darts, and it's moronic that Carson would even allow a bunch of drunks to play a game where they're throwing spears at not only a wall but at each other. But Blake is sober and Adam is holding up well after his shots, and when Blake dares Adam to stand next to the dart board while Blake aims around him, Adam cusses him out and asks why he wants to kill him so badly. Blake just laughs and gets Adam to do it anyway, impressing the younger man with his skilled aim.

About thirty minutes before the clock strikes midnight the tension and excitement in the house start to build, they can all feel it. Men are hanging closer to their female counterparts, waiting to plant a new year's kiss on their lover's lips. It's a silly tradition, but Blake has always wished he had someone to kiss at midnight, or under the mistletoe. It was never Miranda's thing.

A Christmas rock tune comes on and Blake spots Adam shimmying his way, hips swaying exaggeratedly to the music, a smirk on his face, eyebrows dancing. He watches Adam's attractive body snake it's way towards him, as it seems to always do, Adam is always finding some way to show off or grab attention and Blake always seems to be around to notice it. It's a blessing or a curse but he doesn't know which.

"Show me what you got, cowboy," Adam says.

So Blake starts moving his hips in time with Adam's and before he knows it his whole body is bending and twisting to the beat. He barely notices the people whistling and clapping for him, and when the song finishes he's glad because he's nearly out of breath and when he looks at Adam he's laughing and smiling from ear to ear.

Blake finds a rare empty place on a sofa and sits down followed by Adam, right on his lap. The smaller man pretends to cuddle Blake and everyone oohs and ahhs. Then he jumps up, silently throws Blake the finger and walks away.

Blake excuses himself to use the bathroom, where he quickly locks himself inside and reaches down his pants. Little shit and his antics have given Blake a hard-on. Blake needs a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

He's in there longer than he would have liked and when he checks the clock on the wall it reads just one minute to midnight. Where did the time go? A wall of people gathers around the TV, where the local news station is now doing a countdown, and the excitement level is soaring.

The chanting begins.

"Ten, Nine..."

The lights go down.

"Eight, Seven, Six..."

The atmosphere buzzes.

"...Five, Four, Three..."

Blake finds Adam with a red and white blower between his lips and a party hat on his head. On the crowd's count of one he smiles at Blake and sets it off with the hundred others, a look of pure innocent joy on his face.

Over the noise Blake asks, "You forgettin' somethin'?"

Adam's brow furrows and Blake knocks the hat off, snatches the toy from his lips and presses theirs together. Adam tries to wriggle from his grasp at first, Blake could almost laugh at how ridiculous he's being and Adam's reaction is a completely sane one but soon his body surrenders and begins to melt into Blake's as their New Year's kiss unravels into something out of a fairytale.

Blake doesn't want to let those lips go and apparently neither does Adam, he's giving it to Blake like it's his first, last, and most cherished kiss.

Damn, the man's one hell of a good kisser.

The noise starts to die down a bit and Blake eases them apart.

"What was that for?" Adam asks, like he doesn't know. His cheeks are flushed pink and the expression is one of middle school lust.

"You know," Blake says. He walks off after giving the rockstar a wink.