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If Today Was Your Last Day

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Free fall is a hy­po­thet­ic­al term. The real­ity of the defin­i­tion is that no fall is af­fected only by grav­ity. Wind res­ist­ance plays a siz­able role, as does the obstacles that can cross the path of the fall. Still, fall­ing and won­der­ing if you’ll ever stop can be a very real and fright­en­ing ex­per­i­ence.

Kris thought the train­ing had pre­pared him for the worst and no fall could undo him. That was be­fore the four-alarm fire on Cres­cent Street. That was be­fore he’d been a second too slow to get to the win­dow’s safety. That was be­fore he tried to be a hero.

“Nev­er be a hero.”

Kris could re­call the Group Com­mand­er’s words from the first day of train­ing. The phrase had been tucked away in his brain for so long that he wondered if he had dreamed it all. He should have listened, but that was his prob­lem: he nev­er did.

“Al­len? Al­len! Get your ass out of there and back on that lad­der!”

Dang, he’d nev­er heard his part­ner scream like that be­fore. He had to won­der what their Chief was prob­ably think­ing at that mo­ment. “That stu­pid fuck­er is go­ing to get him­self killed,” most likely. His boss was any­thing but polit­ic­ally cor­rect. He cared, though. You couldn’t look Deputy Chief Eber Lam­bert in the eye dur­ing even the small blazes and not know that he cared. The ca­marader­ie among the men was what ce­men­ted Kris’s de­cision to join the Los Angeles Fire De­part­ment. It was a new fam­ily in a place he could barely call home. Some­how, he’d fit right in with the rest of the tough necks.

“There’re more people in here!” Kris would have screamed back if it wasn’t for the oxy­gen mask. “I heard him yelling and I’m not leav­ing him to die!”

For nigh on ten years Kris had been with the de­part­ment, two with the Search and Res­cue Squad. He’d dropped out of col­lege after sign­ing up for his first EMT courses. Busi­ness classes at UCLA were not giv­ing him the ful­fill­ment he sought. Kris wanted to help people. Fur­ther­more, he wanted save people, from them­selves or from forces they couldn’t over­come. A simple men­tion of the mil­it­ary pitched his par­ents in­to fits, but be­ing a para­med­ic was something they could get used to. It took two years of classes and one year of ex­per­i­ence, but Kris came out bet­ter for the wear. Once he’d proven he could handle the stress of dire situ­ations, he’d upped the ante to be­com­ing a fire­fight­er. He had no fam­ily of his own and the pay was bet­ter, as were the be­ne­fits. If only his dad would stop cry­ing every time he brought it up.

“Al­len, I don’t know what game you’re play­ing, but that build­ing is go­ing to fall around you any second. Listen to Giraud. Get back on the lad­der. Now!”

Eber Lam­bert had nev­er been shy about treat­ing Kris as a third son. He was a di­vor­cee and had plenty of time on his hands to keep a fire lit un­der their butts at the sta­tion, but that didn’t stop him from in­clud­ing Kris in the fire­house fam­ily and as an ex­ten­sion of that, his own fam­ily. Kris was the same age as Eber’s young­er son, Neil. They got along as well as you would ex­pect from a mild-mannered south­ern boy like Kris and smart-lipped cyn­ic like Neil, which is to say in­volving al­co­hol and polit­ics was nev­er a good idea. Eber reg­u­larly com­pared their dys­func­tion­al friend­ship to the dys­func­tion­al re­la­tion­ship between Neil and his older broth­er, Adam, who was ba­sic­ally a myth to Kris un­til he re­turned from an ex­ten­ded theatre com­pany tour in Europe.

The cra­zi­est part of their myri­ad of a fam­ily was not that Kris ended up tip­ping ass-over-el­bow the second he laid eyes on Adam Lam­bert, scenester in pur­suit of star­dom. The cra­zi­est part was that Adam felt the same way about Kris. As they say, though, dat­ing your boss’s son is nev­er a good idea. Three years of dat­ing, a civil uni­on, and two ad­op­tions later, Kris and Adam were still prov­ing them wrong.

“Al­len! Where are you? I’m or­der­ing you back on that lad­der. Do you hear me? Oh, shit! Al­len!”

Kris blamed his hair loss and need for hair res­tor­a­tion on his two pre­co­cious chil­dren. Dylan and Kristine were a hand­ful and Kris thanked God every day for bring­ing them in­to his life. It was dif­fi­cult with his twenty-four hour shifts and Adam’s re­hears­al sched­ule, but thanks to Adam’s mom Leila, day­care, and now, school, they made it work.

It was in­sane to Kris to think back on how much his kids had grown. He could re­call chan­ging di­apers and the late nights when Kristine was fussy with col­ic. Dylan had scared the fam­ily months pri­or when he had fallen out of a neigh­bor’s tree while at­tempt­ing to prove that he could climb it after be­ing told to keep his feet on the ground. Kris’ con­nec­tions with the emer­gency room staff re­mained stead­fastly in­tact though he’d been out of his para­med­ic job for nearly a dec­ade. Kris wor­ried about his chil­dren con­stantly, but that was just his over­pro­tect­ive nature. Dylan and Kristine were good, healthy, happy kids. There wasn’t much more that two fath­ers could ask for. In fact, with Kris’s next pro­mo­tion, he and Adam were think­ing of ad­opt­ing a third.

“Man down! Man down! Al­len, can you hear me? Re­port in, Al­len! Are you all right in there?”

A tow rope was use­less when half of a build­ing had ripped through it, though that tow rope was prob­ably the only thing that had saved Kris’ life dur­ing the fall by slow­ing his des­cent. He didn’t know how long he was un­con­scious, but he woke up to dark­ness and swel­ter­ing heat. The oxy­gen mask was battered. He could hardly see any­thing through the vi­sor as it was, so off it came.

Gasp­ing, Kris struggled for breath while every piece of him began to ache as the ad­ren­aline re­ceded. He saw two of everything and heard noth­ing but the ringing in his own ears. The smell barely fazed him. It was a fa­mil­i­ar mix of soot, smoke, and burn­ing car­pet, wood, rub­ber, wir­ing, and tex­tiles. The heat was the biggest is­sue. It was push­ing him down from all angles. He wanted to strip out of the suit, but it was the only thing that was pro­tect­ing him from any blaze that crept in­to his loc­a­tion. Right now, em­bers and ash sur­roun­ded him and it was situ­ation FUBAR. He was in ser­i­ous trouble if he didn’t get help be­fore the oxy­gen ran out.

Mov­ing closer to the floor was harder than Kris ex­pec­ted. He had to cut him­self loose of the now use­less tow rope and find the strength to crawl and find his ra­dio. He could hear it scream­ing at him as his head cleared. Wrest­ling out a flash­light, he swept a look across the floor and saw that the ra­dio had landed a few feet away amongst the debris. Pulling and push­ing with his arms and legs, he man­aged to inch over the short dis­tance and put a gloved hand on the ra­dio, sigh­ing gra­ciously at his small vic­tory.

“Al­len! Al­len! He’s not re­spond­ing! Get me those blue­prints, now!”

“I’m here,” Kris breath­lessly croaked in­to the re­ceiv­er. “It’s Al­len. I’m alive.”

As soon as he said the word alive, Kris re­membered the ci­vil­ian he’d been try­ing to save. Grasp­ing the ra­dio to his chest and rolling onto his back, flop­ping around like an up­turned turtle, Kris forced him­self to sit up and do an­oth­er sweep, look­ing for a body. His light landed on a hand, which lead to an arm, which lead to a slack face and closed eyes.

“Hold on,” Kris called out weakly, not caring if the man could hear him or not. “I’m com­in’!”

Chief Lam­bert shouted on the ra­dio when Kris didn’t re­spond back im­me­di­ately to the next hail, but Kris was con­cen­trat­ing on get­ting across the floor covered with debris, which he shoved out of his way as he went. When he got to the body, he found a pulse, but it was weak and the man’s breath­ing was shal­low.

“Are you hurt, Al­len? Damn it, did we lose you?”

Kris took a shal­low breath of his own, strangled by the heat, and pressed the oxy­gen mask over the ci­vil­ian’s face. “I’m fine. Just shook up,” he panted in­to the ra­dio be­fore swal­low­ing over his dry tongue and slump­ing down closer to the floor. “I got a live one down here. He’s bus­ted up real bad.”

“We’re look­ing at get­ting you some help in there. Just hold tight and don’t ig­nore an­oth­er trans­mis­sion.”

Kris nod­ded a little. “Ro­ger,” he said be­fore set­ting down the ra­dio and grabbing his flash­light so he could as­sess his new pa­tient’s wounds. There were mul­tiple burns and ab­ra­sions, and Kris knew with the way the right arm was twis­ted, it was broken. There’s was no telling about the in­tern­al dam­age and he didn’t want to move the guy if he didn’t have to, so he cleared him­self a spot to sit next to the man and drooped back to prop him­self up on a piece of fallen floor­ing.

Minutes passed be­fore the Chief was on the ra­dio, again. It was pro­ced­ure to take the blue­prints of the build­ing and es­tim­ate where the downed man was loc­ated, and if he was con­scious, have him talk com­mand through what had happened.

“Eighth floor, second unit,” was all Kris could say for where he had been. “I hit stuff on the way down. Knocked me out. I’m guess­ing I fell at least half that if not more.” He paused to breathe and mo­ment­ar­ily had to take the oxy­gen from the ci­vil­ian for him­self.

“How’s it look from out­side? Feels like the whole build­ing’s on top of us.”

“Kris,” it was Giraud’s voice, now. “They’re go­ing over the lay­out with the build­ing com­mis­sion­er. You hang in there, buddy.”

More pro­ced­ure. Kris knew they would come for him; he just had to wait. “Where – Where’s Adam?” he stammered, mouth so dry that it was dif­fi­cult to talk.

“Shut your yap! You’re go­ing to use all the air, you wind­bag.” A sigh. “Go­ing to call him, right now.”

“Don’t let him come—” Kris began, but he was cut off by Matt.

“You know he’s go­ing to come down here no mat­ter what, dude, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t freak out and get the kids just yet.”

Kris sighed and dropped his head back to the wall of debris be­hind him. He swal­lowed though he had no spit, but it was the only way he could get his heart to stop slam­ming in his ears.

The more time that passed and the more chat­ter he heard on the ra­dio, the more wor­ried Kris be­came. It soun­ded like he was cor­rect, the ma­jor­ity of the build­ing had col­lapsed and he was trapped be­neath the res­ult of that. He was one of their own stuck on the in­side, though, and he knew they were go­ing to be risk­ing life and limb to get him out.

“Don’t you do any­thing stu­pid, Matt,” he said to the ra­dio with a shake of his head. “I already did enough stu­pid for the day.”

Matt shushed him. “I’ll dig you out with my bare hands if I have to. We’re gonna try something, hold on.”

Minutes ticked by, nearly thirty by Kris’s count, be­fore there was a voice on the ra­dio. “Al­len?” It was Chief Lam­bert. “Al­len, how much oxy­gen is left in that tank?”

Kris grim­aced when he checked. “Not much. I’d say an­oth­er twenty minutes at the most.”

“Well, here’s the situ­ation,” the Chief star­ted and Kris’ stom­ach dropped in fear be­fore he heard the rest. “You have shit above you, right?”

“Yep,” Kris replied after angling his flash­light up­ward.

The Chief sighed. “If you can get to a room with more head space, you should be all right un­til the dig­gers get here. And if you can see some sky, even bet­ter.”

Kris nod­ded then, which was a bad idea be­cause it made him dizzy, partly due to his likely con­cus­sion and also due to oxy­gen de­ple­tion. He knew what he had to do, though. He had to fol­low the cool air un­til he found some­place without debris trap­ping him and the fire to­geth­er.

“I’ll start look­ing.”

“They’re fif­teen minutes out and then, we’re com­ing to you.”

Con­firm­ing that last trans­mis­sion, Kris took a mo­ment to pull off his oxy­gen tank and set it next to the ci­vil­ian wear­ing his mask. He shoved the ra­dio down the front of his fire­proof jack­et, picked up his flash­light, and star­ted crawl­ing.

Mak­ing a clear path back to civie and his oxy­gen tank, Kris moved debris as he fol­lowed the cool­er air sneak­ing in un­der the heat of the flames. He was drenched in sweat and felt like he was surely melt­ing. All his years grow­ing up in the South­ern Mid­w­est, it had nev­er been this hot. It was too hot to breathe or think, he real­ized after meet­ing a couple dead ends and feel­ing diz­zi­er by the second.

Even­tu­ally, he found the source of the air. There was the small crack, which he could fit a hand in and it was between where two col­lapsed struc­tures met. He was dis­mayed that he couldn’t get the debris to budge out of his way to get to the cool­er area and for his ef­forts, he was sent scram­bling away as more debris slipped down and blocked the hole.

“Damn it,” Kris swore un­der his breath as he fu­tilely glanced around for more debris that wasn’t on fire and looked like it would give way to a shove. He gave a few a try and was nearly burned by a blow-back when he kicked at some em­bers only to be met with a room full of fire. He couldn’t find a way out and the oxy­gen was slowly be­ing lapped away by the flames.

Kris crawled back to the ci­vil­ian and his oxy­gen tank. He sat down and leaned up against some of the debris. Mo­ment­ar­ily clos­ing his eyes, he real­ized how sleepy he was start­ing to feel as he wheezed for breath.

“Al­len, we got a mover,” his jack­et said to him. Pre­fer­ring com­fort over safety, Kris stripped off the heavy jack­et and took up the ra­dio.

“I don’t know how much time we got left in here,” he said, try­ing to keep the des­per­a­tion out of his voice. “I couldn’t find fresh air.” He paused to choke down an­oth­er breath of hot air. “And I don’t know where we are.” An­oth­er pause. “Eber, I need you to tell Adam something for me.”

Kris looked down at the ra­dio du­bi­ously as it squawked at him while two voices fought for con­trol un­til the Chief was back on. “You shouldn’t talk like that with your hus­band around, you know, but whatever you want to say to him…”

“Kris!” Adam’s voice burst out of the speak­er. “Kris, babe, I’m here!”

Kris’ heart sud­denly ached and he slumped where he sat. He tried to talk, but Adam’s voice had stopped what little brain­power he had. He didn’t want Adam to be out there wit­ness­ing this. No spouse should have to go through this. Kris nearly said as much, but all he could muster as he held down the talk but­ton was, “I love you.” He let out a shaky sigh. “I love you so don’t do any­thing stu­pid when I’m gone.”

“Why are you say­ing that to me?” Adam soun­ded bey­ond up­set. “They’re go­ing to get you out!”

The ache was too much for Kris. He sat down the ra­dio be­fore go­ing to his belly to get as low as he could go in hopes of grabbing what oxy­gen was left.

“Kris? Kris! Why aren’t you say­ing any­thing? If you think you can just go to work and be the hero and then die on me, you are fuck­ing mis­taken. Do you hear me?! Kris?!”

Pray­er was something near and dear to Kris’ heart. He was raised a Chris­ti­an and had nev­er stopped go­ing to church, help­ing the con­greg­a­tion, or pray­ing. Everything he’d prayed for in the past seemed so stu­pid, now. He’d once prayed for Dylan to pass an Eng­lish test. Now, he was pray­ing for Dylan and Kristine to be strong and have won­der­ful lives. He prayed for the fire­house fam­ily in hopes that they would nev­er have to suc­cumb to this same fate. He prayed that the man he was trapped with would sur­vive. He also prayed that Adam would be able to move on without him.

When his vis­ion star­ted to tun­nel out, Kris resigned his body and closed his eyes, ready for death as his lungs burned for new air and he choked over and over as he tried to breathe. In his last con­scious mo­ments, he felt the debris and floor rumble as if something ex­tremely large was pulling and shak­ing his world. Kris opened his eyes a slit to see debris crash­ing to the floor around him as light came through the dark­ness for him to fol­low. He was home.

“Daddy, what’s heav­en like?”

Kris paused as he was tuck­ing Kristine in­to the lav­ender sheets on her dazzling prin­cess bed that she and Adam had con­spired to buy for her fifth birth­day. The head­board and foot­board were both made out of pink, heavy duty plastic shaped in­to castle columns with fake win­dows with or­nate bars view­ing a garden. It was ri­dicu­lous to Kris, but he had buckled un­der the pres­sure when even Dylan had got­ten in­to the mix, say­ing he wanted his little sis­ter to be happy.

Swal­low­ing roughly over his parched throat that he was cer­tain would nev­er be the same after the fire, Kris fin­ished tuck­ing Kristine in be­fore he took a seat aside her. “I don’t re­mem­ber any­thing, darlin’,” he said as he leaned over her to kiss the top of her head of soft brown hair. He kept one arm across her, perched on his hand, as he pulled back while she con­tin­ued to pry.

“But Papa said you vis­ited heav­en! I want to vis­it heav­en.”

Kris pressed his lips to­geth­er as his whole body ached at the thought of los­ing his little girl, even for a mo­ment. She was star­ing up at him with big, ex­pect­ant green eyes and he was strug­gling to save face. He’d been eas­ily moved to emo­tion since the fire as he ran across daily re­mind­ers of what he could have lost if his fel­low fire­men hadn’t reached him when they did.

“Not un­til you’re at least a hun­dred and ninety,” Kris said with a tight smile. When tiny arms reached up for a hug, Kris leaned down and gathered her up to his chest. He hooked his chin over her shoulder and held on tightly, pet­ting her hair.

“I love you, Daddy,” she said in a small, sleepy voice.

His eyes squeezed shut and he breathed in the flowery scent of her bubble bath. He could nev­er get enough of that smell. “I love you, too, baby,” he said in a hoarse whis­per be­fore kiss­ing her hair one last time and tuck­ing her back in­to bed. She was peace­fully drift­ing off in­to sleep be­fore he turned off her bed­side lamp. Kris watched Kristine sleep for sev­er­al minutes be­fore he was slowly push­ing up from her bed and leav­ing the room, be­ing sure to stoop and turn on her Ra­pun­zel night light near the door.

In the hall, Kris paused between his chil­dren’s rooms to put a hand to the wall and col­lect him­self, which was more dif­fi­cult than he thought it would be. He’d nearly lost all of this – Kristine, Dylan, and Adam – and he wasn’t sure if he could ever for­give him­self for that. His kids would have had to grow up with only one dad and Adam would have had to go it alone. Kris told him­self he wasn’t go­ing to dwell on the ‘what ifs’ but it was damn near im­possible to es­cape every bad thought.

Paus­ing out­side of Dylan’s room, Kris could see that Adam had already put their son to bed and he was thank­ful for that. He wasn’t sure if he could handle an­oth­er set of in­no­cent eyes ask­ing ques­tions. Cross­ing quietly in­to the room, he leaned over Dylan to kiss the boy’s au­burn hair, which smelled dis­tinctly of Trans­formers ar­ti­fi­cial berry scen­ted sham­poo. Dylan mur­mured in his sleep and for a fleet­ing second Kris wor­ried that he’d woken Dylan up, only to have him softly coo and settle once more.

“Love you,” Kris mouthed more than whispered be­fore he crept out of the room.

Kris’s shoulders drooped with ex­haus­tion once he was in his own bed­room. He pulled off the navy, long-sleeved LAFD shirt to re­veal a brown beat­er and took the shirt, which would nor­mally be dis­carded on the floor, over to the hamper to avoid piss­ing off Adam. This was Kris’ first night home from the hos­pit­al and he wanted everything to go per­fectly, mean­ing he didn’t want to fight and he didn’t want to cry. He just wanted peace and love, and wow he soun­ded like a hip­pie, but that was truly all he wanted.

He took a seat on the edge of their Cali­for­nia king-sized bed and rubbed his tired eyes. The heat and smell of the fire haunted him. He con­sidered shed­ding all of his clothes and tak­ing his third shower for the day. Wa­ter would hide the tears that had been threat­en­ing since he laid down Kristine.

Kris was stum­bling to­ward the bath­room as he hiked the beat­er up his bruised back when Adam pad­ded in­to the room with two glasses of wa­ter. Turn­ing around, Kris pulled the shirt off en­tirely and aver­ted his gaze after see­ing Adam’s con­cerned face. “I was just go­ing to take a cold shower,” Kris softly ex­plained.

“An­oth­er one? Babe…” Adam soun­ded as wor­ried as he looked. Kris had trouble meet­ing Adam’s gaze over the past week in the hos­pit­al. He knew he’d messed up more than he could put in­to words and that he was lucky to be alive, and he de­served every lec­ture that Adam could give him, but Adam hadn’t lec­tured Kris. He’d fret­ted and fawned, and nev­er left Kris’ side.

Kris sighed shakily and threw the balled-up shirt in the gen­er­al dir­ec­tion of the hamper, not caring where it landed. He let his arms fall with his palms open to Adam. “It’s the heat,” he said and ran a hand through his thin hair, eyes still on the floor. “I can’t get away from the heat.”

Kris watched as Adam sat the glasses to two coast­ers on the bed­side ta­ble. When Adam took his hand, Kris made him­self peer up to meet Adam’s wor­ried stare. Kris swal­lowed roughly and felt his words catch in the back of his throat. “Adam, I…” he star­ted, but was shushed by a kiss on the cheek. Adam’s lips were soft and Kris’ pressed to­geth­er in a mo­ment of weak­ness as Adam care­fully hugged him. Kris tucked his face against Adam’s shoulder and wept.

When Kris fi­nally stopped paw­ing at Adam and curled his fin­gers tightly in the back of Adam’s shirt, Adam pulled away and quietly took both of Kris’ hands. “Come on,” he whispered. Kris sniffed up his tears be­fore fol­low­ing Adam in­to the bath­room. Adam let go of Kris and began strip­ping by the dim light of a small, bulb-less night light. Wip­ing his eyes, Kris sighed heav­ily as he watched. It felt like years had passed since he last saw Adam’s body.

“Do I need to help you out of your jeans?” Adam asked and Kris would have laughed if that wasn’t a ser­i­ous ques­tion.

Shak­ing his head, “I’ve got it,” Kris replied as he threw open his fly. He paused to watch Adam trail over to the walk-in shower and turn on the wa­ter, but only the cold wa­ter. Kris blinked as wa­ter shot forth and filled the bath­room with sound. “You’re go­ing to freeze,” Kris said.

“Does it look like I care?” Adam asked in­dig­nantly as he ar­ranged two tow­els on the rack out­side of the shower.

Something of a smile twitched on Kris’ face. “No,” he replied and pulled off his jeans, un­der­wear, and socks. He was the first in­to the shower and though it felt like his skin might jump off his body, Kris took to the cold wa­ter as re­lief spread through him. Hands on the shower walls, he braced as he let the cool wa­ter run over his back and send chills through him. Slowly, the flush in his body and the feel­ing of the heat lap­ping at him began to re­cede.

Arms wrapped Kris from be­hind and re­minded him that he was not alone. He lif­ted his head, but he didn’t move to be closer to Adam un­til there were breath and lips on the back on his neck. Slowly turn­ing around, Kris stepped fully in­to Adam’s em­brace and re­laxed his body as he loosely re­turned the hug. They stood there for sev­er­al seconds and held each oth­er un­til Kris felt a shud­der run through Adam’s body. In­stinct­ively, Kris pushed against Adam to back him away from the cold wa­ter.

“You don’t have to stay in here,” Kris said with a feeble shove.

Adam laughed, though it soun­ded pained. “You’re an idi­ot if you think I’m go­ing to let you do any­thing without me, now,” he softly spat and held on. “And I mean any­thing. You’re not go­ing to the doc­tor or tak­ing the kids to school or even go­ing to Star­bucks without a chap­er­one.”

Kris smiled and his chest ached. “What about work?”

“Kris,” Adam star­ted be­fore he be­came a little shrill, “if you don’t take that desk job my dad is of­fer­ing—“

“I am. I am,” Kris as­sured him. “I was just check­ing.”

Adam grumbled be­fore he sighed and pressed his face in­to Kris’ neck. “I love you so much, you stu­pid stu­pid man,” he said against Kris’ wet skin.

Kris lif­ted his face and so did Adam. Kris bit down on his lower lip. Though he could barely make out Adam’s fea­tures in the dark, the dim light caught the shim­mer of Adam’s eyes, which made him start to crumble. “Adam, all I could think about in that build­ing was you and the kids, and I – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he stammered.

Adam cut him off with a kiss that was so needy and deep that Kris’ toes curled against the floor of the shower stall. It was the first kiss that Adam hadn’t held back on since Kris had been in the hos­pit­al. Some­how, Kris man­aged to get the wa­ter turned off without let­ting go of Adam. They con­tin­ued to kiss and grip each oth­er with such want­ing that Kris felt like he was twenty-five and fall­ing in love again.

Dry­ing off be­came a two-per­son job and Kris was grin­ning by the end of it as Adam dragged him closer to the night light and roughed up his hair. “So hot like that,” Adam whispered be­fore kiss­ing him. The giddy de­light Kris was get­ting from each kiss began to wane as the fa­tigue set in­to his body.

Kris laughed softly as he ducked away. “Okay, I think I can put my pants on my­self.” Adam helped any­way.

When they were settled in­to bed, tangled up in each oth­er like two young lov­ers, Kris nuzzled his face against Adam’s hairy chest. He was fully pre­pared to fall asleep when Adam asked, “Do you know how much this fam­ily loves you, Kris? I mean, do you really know?”

Kris star­ted to pull away, un­able to look at Adam. “Ap­par­ently, I don’t if I have to go play hero to someone else,” he said, sud­denly up­set all over again.

“That’s not what I meant,” Adam was quick to reply as he hauled Kris back in­to their em­brace. “You are a hero, Kris. To the kids and to me, and I want you to think about that be­fore you put your­self on the line. We love you and can’t live without you, and I think you know that.”

Kris sniffed and nod­ded. “You’re the most im­port­ant people in my life,” he said as his voice star­ted to crack. “I don’t want to let you guys down.”

“Just don’t take us for gran­ted. That’s all I’m ask­ing,” Adam replied with a brush of a kiss against Kris’s cheek.

Shak­ing his head, “Nev­er again,” Kris said tightly. “Nev­er, ever, again,” he ad­ded force­fully be­fore Adam was cup­ping his face. “I love you,” Kris croaked as he went for an­oth­er kiss.

“Daddy?”

Kris and Adam both stalled and looked to­ward Kristine’s voice call­ing from down the hall.

“I’m on it,” Adam said be­fore he pressed a quick kiss to Kris’s mouth and slipped out of the bed.

“She wants me, though.”

Adam frowned. “You need your rest. Papa can handle this.”

Kris sighed and de­flated in­to the sheets, which he looked to swim­ming in when he was in their large bed by him­self.

“You know you’re their hero, too, right?” Kris asked as Adam pulled on a t-shirt. He saw Adam shake his head and guessed that he was rolling his eyes. “I’m ser­i­ous,” Kris said. “I’m Su­per Stu­pid Dad. You’re Su­per Mad Tal­en­ted Dad with a match­ing cape.”

Adam laughed quietly. “Kris, if you get me a cape—“

“So get­ting you a cape,” Kris in­ter­rup­ted as he made him­self com­fort­able. “With your name in sparkles,” he ad­ded in a rumble as he stretched a cramp out of his leg.

Adam glanced back at him from the door­way. “And I’m so maul­ing you for it when you’re strong enough,” he whispered be­fore Kristine called, again. “I’m com­ing, baby,” Adam said as he slipped away, down the hall.

Though he was try­ing to wait up for Adam to re­turn, Kris passed out with­in minutes with a pray­er on his lips, thank­ing God for giv­ing him such a won­der­ful man to love.