Kradam Mafia AU
Title: Tarnished Souls
Author: Xequth
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: Um... Light R?
Prompt: An AU Kradam fic. Adam is part of a Mafia family, Kris isn't.
Author's Note: I feel really bad for this, but due to a combination of schoolwork and unforeseen personal circumstances, this is not yet finished. *hangs head in shame* It will be soon though, but I felt like I should have something for the prompter before the deadline. So here's the first half, with the second to come in a few days.
Hating organised crime was one of the first things Kris learned in the big city.
Back in Arkansas, he'd frowned on it and thought mobsters deserved to be punished of course. But it was an abstract hate, distant. Something he'd never really thought about. Here, it was on his doorstep, sometimes literally. Although it was a pretty cruddy neighbourhood anyway. Kris had thought it looked nice, and surprisingly affordable. He could comfortably pay for it on his bartender's salary and have the money from his guitar gigs to save up. When he moved in he realised why.
The streets were clean. There were minimal junkies at the corners. No broken windows or car alarms in the middle of the night. Yet it was home to the worst criminals in the city. The bars and clubs that lined the street walked the line between elite and sleaze. The young and the rich partied in them just to say they had. But once they'd had their fun they went to other neighbourhoods and slept soundly. They didn't stay.
It took a weird kind of mind trick to know that any well-dressed man you saw in the street was likely part of the Family and any pretty girl was probably being wined-and-dined on blood money. The big names you sometimes recognised. The grey-haired Mafiosi who had their pictures in the paper even though the police could never pin anything on them. Every day he served hired hitmen and drugrunners at the bar, knowing they were responsible for countless miseries and not being able to do anything about it.
Because Kris saw the twisted opulence of the mob and its gun-toting members, but just as much he saw its victims. His boss handing over stacks of bills to a dark-eyed man with a nervous twitch. Paying protection to keep his business intact when Kris knew his wife had twins on the way. The woman across the hall who walked with a limp because her husband had refused to lie to the police. They never found him. Wide-eyed country girls trapped by ageing druglords, resigned to their fate as trophy wives.
It was worse because you could never give voice to the hatred. Never speak it out loud. Yet you recognised it in the eyes of everyone else who had the misfortune to live or work on that particular street. Kris knew that hating it was pointless, that it achieved nothing. He also knew that the right thing to do was pray for the mobsters immortal souls. He tried, but stopped because he knew his heart wasn't in it. He got used to the hate.
Kris can remember the day something shifted in the hatred. It was the day he first laid eyes on the man known simply as Adam.
He was working the late shift in the bar, a place that would be seedy if not for the calibre of the clientele. He had just mixed a vodka martini for a short guy with greasy brown hair and an evil squint. Kris' fingers were absentmindedly tapping out a beat on the tops of the bar and his eyes were skating around the room for something of interest.
Then Adam walked in. Tall, imposing, clad in a long black coat and a hat pulled down low. It could have been anyone really if not for the low sweep of black hair and his piercing blue eyes. They said you could always recognise Adam by his eyes.
Everyone in the bar tensed, sitting a few fractions of an inch straighter. There was a collective intake of breath, felt rather than heard, like Adam was some gunfighter in an old Western film. Which wasn't really so far from the truth. You see, Adam killed people. He was a hitman, it was what he did. He was in deep with the Family and entrusted with their direst dirty work. He was threat used by mob bosses, a weapon that never failed to deliver the killing blow.
Adam simply stood in the entrance to the bar for a few long moments, his unforgiving eyes idly sweeping the room. They rested on someone.
The squinty guy's vodka martini slipped from his trembling fingers as realisation hit him. Kris winced at the too loud smashing sound it made as it hit the floor. The guy didn't even try to run, just stood there like a deer in the headlights as Adam took one slow step forwards.
In the back of Kris' mind something was screaming. Someone was going to be killed right in front of his eyes. Kris had never really thought hitmen killed in the middle of crowded bars but there was a dark purpose in Adam's stride. The hat and coat made sense now, it would be easy for all the witnesses to pretend they hadn't gotten a good enough look at his face to identify him, but everyone would still know who did it and why. Not for the first time he felt revulsion at the well-oiled wheels of the Mafia.
His mind seemed to be running in slow motion as Adam's hand slipped inside the dark coat and brought out a gun. Kris noted with sick fascination the almost innocent way the dim light reflected off of the weapon. He was close enough to the intended target for his heart to leap into his throat in sudden irrational fear that the bullet was meant for him.
The gun sounded twice, sudden and shrill in the silence. The man at the bar slumped downwards. Distantly Kris saw red blood mingle with the vodka martini and broken glass. He glimpsed a feeble twitch of fingers, before he forced his eyes away. He ended up looking at Adam. Eyes like blue steel and a mouth set in a harsh, grim line. The gun was lowered and tucked away into the coat. Feet clad in Italian leather turned towards the door.
They paused for a second and Adam's eyes met Kris'. The coldness was gone, his gaze no longer frozen into something so hard it's almost a physical weapon. There was sorrow in the blue depths, a vulnerability and a sort of bleak acceptance. Then the eyes were wiped clean of emotion, and the door swung open and shut and Adam was gone.
As Kris drifted to sleep that night he wasn't thinking of the cold clamminess of his hands as he helped the police move the body, nor of the curious patterns bled across the floor. His mind was just filled with those eyes, wide and deep enough to swim in.
That was the first time. Adam came into the bar periodically after that. Each time, there was still the collective fear when he stepped through the door. But there were no more assassinations, a fact for which Kris' boss was supremely grateful. Adam just calmly walked across to the bar, ordered a scotch on the rocks, not quite looking anyone in the eye, and sat at the end of the bar in thoughtful silence. All his visits took this pattern.
He never spoke to anyone but Kris, and even then it was the minimum of words to order his poison of choice. Sometimes he spoke on the phone, Adam's low melodic voice equally monosyllabic in conversations that Kris studiously ignored. Just like he chose to ignore the way his own eyes traced Adam's classic profile, noted the large strong hands with perfectly manicured nails or lingered a bit too long on his lips against his glass as he sipped his drink.
Kris had figured that part of himself out long ago, but was slightly worried that the fact he had seen Adam kill someone right in front him didn't seem to dampen his crush. Besides he knew enough of the Mafia's membership policies to know that he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. So he stole his little glances and didn't think anything more of it.
Until the day Adam broke his routine that is. He came in as normal, unperturbed by the now routine second of silence, and walked up to the bar. Then it went off the script. Instead of the usual not-quite-eye contact, Adam pinned Kris with his perfect gaze. He stared with such intensity that Kris felt like nothing in the world existed apart from the two of them. Adam didn't even look away as he placed his exact change on the bar. Kris' eyes flickered downwards, noticing a white card amongst the bills. He tilted his head slightly to read it. It was an address written in slanting bold handwriting and underneath it the word 'midnight'.
Any of Kris' initial confusion about Adam's intentions was erased by the look in Adam's eyes. Burning hot and determined, with a promise that Kris really wished didn't make him go weak at the knees. He served Adam his drink on auto-pilot, oddly relieved when Adam took it and sat in his usual seat without a word.
The rest of his shift Kris spent in a daze. His mind was running in circles, torn as to what to do. On the one hand, Adam killed people, was in the Mafia and Kris knew nothing about him other than those facts. On the other, Adam was gorgeous, Kris had a far too big crush on him and also hadn't gotten laid in a while.
In the end Kris ended up standing outside an apartment in a very nice building feeling vaguely ashamed that morals lost out.
He gingerly knocked on the door before he lost his nerve. It was opened nearly immediately. Adam was in a shirt, slacks and stocking feet. He had purple socks on. Kris couldn't help but hold back a smile at that.
Adam cocked his head to one side, an odd look in his eyes as he said, “I wasn't sure if you would come.”
Kris tried really hard to not give away the shiver that ran down his spine and thought he succeeded. He also succeeded in keeping his voice steady for the most part. “Yeah, I wasn't sure either.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the ground and wondered it there was any way for this to be less awkward.
Then Adam grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside the apartment and he found himself with his back against the door. Kris blinked confusedly. And forgot everything as Adam's lips came crashing against his. It was rough and demanding and perfect. Kris just surrendered himself to Adam's tongue and teeth, allowing himself to be kissed more thoroughly than he ever had been in his life. He delighted in the stretch he felt in his neck as he reached up to Adam's mouth and the muscular bulk of the body pressing him up against the door. He was grateful for that, otherwise his knees would certainly have given out.
Once his lips were red and swollen from kisses, Adam moved onto his neck. Kris couldn't help the moan that ghosted from his lips as Adam nipped and sucked expertly down his throat. One of Adam's hands was searing into his hip and the other rested on his collarbone, as careful as if Kris were made of glass. Kris's hands had somehow found themselves twined in Adam's black hair and Kris gave a slight tug, trying to tell Adam that he wasn't that fragile.
Adam just made a guttural growling sound in the back of his throat and steered Kris towards the bedroom, kissing and claiming the whole way. Once there Kris kind of lost track of time, all he knew is that the sex is amazing. It was primal and raw, pleasure and release. Adam certainly made good on the promise he made with his eyes.
Afterwards they lay there, not exactly cuddling, but just touching. The sensation of skin against skin is comforting and lulls Kris to sleep.
Author: Xequth
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: Um... Light R?
Prompt: An AU Kradam fic. Adam is part of a Mafia family, Kris isn't.
Author's Note: I feel really bad for this, but due to a combination of schoolwork and unforeseen personal circumstances, this is not yet finished. *hangs head in shame* It will be soon though, but I felt like I should have something for the prompter before the deadline. So here's the first half, with the second to come in a few days.
Hating organised crime was one of the first things Kris learned in the big city.
Back in Arkansas, he'd frowned on it and thought mobsters deserved to be punished of course. But it was an abstract hate, distant. Something he'd never really thought about. Here, it was on his doorstep, sometimes literally. Although it was a pretty cruddy neighbourhood anyway. Kris had thought it looked nice, and surprisingly affordable. He could comfortably pay for it on his bartender's salary and have the money from his guitar gigs to save up. When he moved in he realised why.
The streets were clean. There were minimal junkies at the corners. No broken windows or car alarms in the middle of the night. Yet it was home to the worst criminals in the city. The bars and clubs that lined the street walked the line between elite and sleaze. The young and the rich partied in them just to say they had. But once they'd had their fun they went to other neighbourhoods and slept soundly. They didn't stay.
It took a weird kind of mind trick to know that any well-dressed man you saw in the street was likely part of the Family and any pretty girl was probably being wined-and-dined on blood money. The big names you sometimes recognised. The grey-haired Mafiosi who had their pictures in the paper even though the police could never pin anything on them. Every day he served hired hitmen and drugrunners at the bar, knowing they were responsible for countless miseries and not being able to do anything about it.
Because Kris saw the twisted opulence of the mob and its gun-toting members, but just as much he saw its victims. His boss handing over stacks of bills to a dark-eyed man with a nervous twitch. Paying protection to keep his business intact when Kris knew his wife had twins on the way. The woman across the hall who walked with a limp because her husband had refused to lie to the police. They never found him. Wide-eyed country girls trapped by ageing druglords, resigned to their fate as trophy wives.
It was worse because you could never give voice to the hatred. Never speak it out loud. Yet you recognised it in the eyes of everyone else who had the misfortune to live or work on that particular street. Kris knew that hating it was pointless, that it achieved nothing. He also knew that the right thing to do was pray for the mobsters immortal souls. He tried, but stopped because he knew his heart wasn't in it. He got used to the hate.
Kris can remember the day something shifted in the hatred. It was the day he first laid eyes on the man known simply as Adam.
He was working the late shift in the bar, a place that would be seedy if not for the calibre of the clientele. He had just mixed a vodka martini for a short guy with greasy brown hair and an evil squint. Kris' fingers were absentmindedly tapping out a beat on the tops of the bar and his eyes were skating around the room for something of interest.
Then Adam walked in. Tall, imposing, clad in a long black coat and a hat pulled down low. It could have been anyone really if not for the low sweep of black hair and his piercing blue eyes. They said you could always recognise Adam by his eyes.
Everyone in the bar tensed, sitting a few fractions of an inch straighter. There was a collective intake of breath, felt rather than heard, like Adam was some gunfighter in an old Western film. Which wasn't really so far from the truth. You see, Adam killed people. He was a hitman, it was what he did. He was in deep with the Family and entrusted with their direst dirty work. He was threat used by mob bosses, a weapon that never failed to deliver the killing blow.
Adam simply stood in the entrance to the bar for a few long moments, his unforgiving eyes idly sweeping the room. They rested on someone.
The squinty guy's vodka martini slipped from his trembling fingers as realisation hit him. Kris winced at the too loud smashing sound it made as it hit the floor. The guy didn't even try to run, just stood there like a deer in the headlights as Adam took one slow step forwards.
In the back of Kris' mind something was screaming. Someone was going to be killed right in front of his eyes. Kris had never really thought hitmen killed in the middle of crowded bars but there was a dark purpose in Adam's stride. The hat and coat made sense now, it would be easy for all the witnesses to pretend they hadn't gotten a good enough look at his face to identify him, but everyone would still know who did it and why. Not for the first time he felt revulsion at the well-oiled wheels of the Mafia.
His mind seemed to be running in slow motion as Adam's hand slipped inside the dark coat and brought out a gun. Kris noted with sick fascination the almost innocent way the dim light reflected off of the weapon. He was close enough to the intended target for his heart to leap into his throat in sudden irrational fear that the bullet was meant for him.
The gun sounded twice, sudden and shrill in the silence. The man at the bar slumped downwards. Distantly Kris saw red blood mingle with the vodka martini and broken glass. He glimpsed a feeble twitch of fingers, before he forced his eyes away. He ended up looking at Adam. Eyes like blue steel and a mouth set in a harsh, grim line. The gun was lowered and tucked away into the coat. Feet clad in Italian leather turned towards the door.
They paused for a second and Adam's eyes met Kris'. The coldness was gone, his gaze no longer frozen into something so hard it's almost a physical weapon. There was sorrow in the blue depths, a vulnerability and a sort of bleak acceptance. Then the eyes were wiped clean of emotion, and the door swung open and shut and Adam was gone.
As Kris drifted to sleep that night he wasn't thinking of the cold clamminess of his hands as he helped the police move the body, nor of the curious patterns bled across the floor. His mind was just filled with those eyes, wide and deep enough to swim in.
That was the first time. Adam came into the bar periodically after that. Each time, there was still the collective fear when he stepped through the door. But there were no more assassinations, a fact for which Kris' boss was supremely grateful. Adam just calmly walked across to the bar, ordered a scotch on the rocks, not quite looking anyone in the eye, and sat at the end of the bar in thoughtful silence. All his visits took this pattern.
He never spoke to anyone but Kris, and even then it was the minimum of words to order his poison of choice. Sometimes he spoke on the phone, Adam's low melodic voice equally monosyllabic in conversations that Kris studiously ignored. Just like he chose to ignore the way his own eyes traced Adam's classic profile, noted the large strong hands with perfectly manicured nails or lingered a bit too long on his lips against his glass as he sipped his drink.
Kris had figured that part of himself out long ago, but was slightly worried that the fact he had seen Adam kill someone right in front him didn't seem to dampen his crush. Besides he knew enough of the Mafia's membership policies to know that he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell. So he stole his little glances and didn't think anything more of it.
Until the day Adam broke his routine that is. He came in as normal, unperturbed by the now routine second of silence, and walked up to the bar. Then it went off the script. Instead of the usual not-quite-eye contact, Adam pinned Kris with his perfect gaze. He stared with such intensity that Kris felt like nothing in the world existed apart from the two of them. Adam didn't even look away as he placed his exact change on the bar. Kris' eyes flickered downwards, noticing a white card amongst the bills. He tilted his head slightly to read it. It was an address written in slanting bold handwriting and underneath it the word 'midnight'.
Any of Kris' initial confusion about Adam's intentions was erased by the look in Adam's eyes. Burning hot and determined, with a promise that Kris really wished didn't make him go weak at the knees. He served Adam his drink on auto-pilot, oddly relieved when Adam took it and sat in his usual seat without a word.
The rest of his shift Kris spent in a daze. His mind was running in circles, torn as to what to do. On the one hand, Adam killed people, was in the Mafia and Kris knew nothing about him other than those facts. On the other, Adam was gorgeous, Kris had a far too big crush on him and also hadn't gotten laid in a while.
In the end Kris ended up standing outside an apartment in a very nice building feeling vaguely ashamed that morals lost out.
He gingerly knocked on the door before he lost his nerve. It was opened nearly immediately. Adam was in a shirt, slacks and stocking feet. He had purple socks on. Kris couldn't help but hold back a smile at that.
Adam cocked his head to one side, an odd look in his eyes as he said, “I wasn't sure if you would come.”
Kris tried really hard to not give away the shiver that ran down his spine and thought he succeeded. He also succeeded in keeping his voice steady for the most part. “Yeah, I wasn't sure either.” He scuffed the toe of his shoe against the ground and wondered it there was any way for this to be less awkward.
Then Adam grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside the apartment and he found himself with his back against the door. Kris blinked confusedly. And forgot everything as Adam's lips came crashing against his. It was rough and demanding and perfect. Kris just surrendered himself to Adam's tongue and teeth, allowing himself to be kissed more thoroughly than he ever had been in his life. He delighted in the stretch he felt in his neck as he reached up to Adam's mouth and the muscular bulk of the body pressing him up against the door. He was grateful for that, otherwise his knees would certainly have given out.
Once his lips were red and swollen from kisses, Adam moved onto his neck. Kris couldn't help the moan that ghosted from his lips as Adam nipped and sucked expertly down his throat. One of Adam's hands was searing into his hip and the other rested on his collarbone, as careful as if Kris were made of glass. Kris's hands had somehow found themselves twined in Adam's black hair and Kris gave a slight tug, trying to tell Adam that he wasn't that fragile.
Adam just made a guttural growling sound in the back of his throat and steered Kris towards the bedroom, kissing and claiming the whole way. Once there Kris kind of lost track of time, all he knew is that the sex is amazing. It was primal and raw, pleasure and release. Adam certainly made good on the promise he made with his eyes.
Afterwards they lay there, not exactly cuddling, but just touching. The sensation of skin against skin is comforting and lulls Kris to sleep.