Though the cold in the air had not bothered Adam even a little, that wicked grin of his friend's set a chill racing down his spine. He shuddered, checking the motion a moment too late. All these years he had never suspected these things, had never imagined that the boy who had tormented and protected him with equal fervor wanted something from him he was not prepared to give. It cast all their shared experiences into a new light, calling into question every interaction, every word and look that had ever passed between them. He wondered if Alex knew. Quickly he dismissed that thought, as if merely thinking her name might make her party to this, might drag her into something in which she had no real part. But in spite of the tangled emotions Adam felt in light of this revelation, a single thought remained: If this truly was a dream, distantly removed from all reality, Adam might grant him here what he could not elsewhere. He looked back to James, then, trying to read that enigmatic expression.
"I don't know what to think," he said at last. He reached out a pale hand - noting James' sudden flash of what seemed, at least, like anger, though at which of them it was directed Adam could not rightly tell - and curved thin fingers around his friend's arm. "I didn't know..." He sighed, lips pursing as he wondered what to do. At last he made his choice. It was, after all, just a dream, and someone else's, besides. Or so he told himself.
He leaned up to James, his hand tightening on the other man's thick, muscled arm. Closing the distance between them, his body pressed flush to his friend's, he covered James' mouth with his own, and shut out the thought of Alex's softer, sweeter taste as he parted her brother's lips with his tongue.