[ the finest friend ]
Jan. 23rd, 2010 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterlivetwo people won me for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
help_haiti! hurrah! this is neither of their fictions.
adam/kris, R. muchas gracias to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
traveller, roga and jamesinboots for their invaluable assistance.
summary: "Tell me a secret. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
Morocco, 2005
It's hot. Rain thunders down around the hut and it makes the air thick and fragrant, but his lips are dry with the sucking, poisonous heat. He tries to reach for the window, just a drop or two would be something, but he's so weak; the Imam's gentle hands push him back down into his sweat-soaked sheets. The Imam's hands are dry too; dry as paper and dark as the dirt.
It's been so long in this place, he can't remember. His head is throbbing and his mouth is dry, and he's sure that once he did something other than lie on the ground but he doesn't know what it was. He can't think anymore. He doesn't know his name; he doesn't know where he belongs.
The Imam is praying, his sibilant voice forming the shahadah. Lâ ilâha illallâh, the words ringing in his ears like echoes in the mountains. He wishes he could pray too, but his throat bubbles with blood when he tries. At least it's wet.
The stink of broken bricks of hash drifts past his head. It smells like chemicals; when he twists his head away, it smells like bile. His body isn't his own anymore; he can feel it trying to kill him. He tries so hard to sink into his mind, to live there, to remember something. Anything.
Autumn daffodil husks, crumbling on the pavement as it wavers in the heat. His friends call out to him - we have things to do, we have to go, stop looking at every little thing.
It's his and not his - it was far away, and it was too long ago. He's slipping away and his heart is slowing even though he's terrified; it's all wrong. The Imam's voice pronounces the names of God, and that's something he knows, so he clings to it as long as he can.
The rain is slowing down outside, and it's hot. It's still too hot.
~
The bus is quiet, but that makes sense because it's closing on two in the morning. They're on their way to a hotel, a glorious place of rest and showers where Adam will strip naked and climb between the sheets and forget his entire life for eight perfect hours.
But that's not happening yet. At present, he's got his boots up on the bench seat with Kris sprawled beside him. All the other guys are in their bunks with the exception of Matt and Danny, who are doing something unimaginable with the contents of the mini-fridge and a magic marker.
"Pact," Kris says, his voice whisper-soft, as all of them have taken to doing these days. They're all wearing out and are on strict doctor's orders to conserve as much as possible.
Adam squints down at Kris. "Mm?"
Kris peers back at him. "Pact. I won't eat anything else out of that fridge if you won't."
"Oh," Adam says. "Yeah, deal. They're probably huffing that Sharpie."
As if on cue, Danny bursts out in muffled giggles.
Adam grins, and then has to yawn; hears Kris doing the same beside him in the next second, which he knew was gonna happen. Being part of this hodgepodge family is second nature now. At some point, the tour is going to end and Adam will get to see his real friends and family again, and that'll be nice. But he'll definitely miss these guys.
Kris pokes his arm, his earnest brown eyes aimed right at Adam's heart. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," Adam smiles.
"Tell me a secret. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
"Uh. I dunno. I'm an Aquarius?"
Kris rolls his eyes. "The western hemisphere knows that, Adam."
"Gimme a break, it's late." Adam settles himself against the couch a little more, puts his arm along the back. Kris pushes in against him, his cuddle junkie instincts having long since identified Adam as a dealer; Adam duly cuddles. "Um. Oh, here's one. I once decided I was going to be a lawyer."
Kris laughs, and the sound buzzes along Adam's side. "Seriously?"
"Oh, totally. I made my mom buy me a three piece suit and a tie. I was... gosh, eight? Nine?"
"There have got to be pictures."
"Not that you'll ever see 'em," Adam laughs, and jostles Kris with his arm. "So? My turn now. The devastating secrets of the American Idol."
Kris leans back, looks up into Adam's eyes with a smile that's a little too serious for him. "Okay. But you'll freak out."
Adam brightens, grinning at him. "Ooh, scandal! Did you kill a man in Reno just to watch him die?"
Kris snorts, pulling his gangsta face. "That ain't no secret."
Muffling his giggles against his arm, Adam tries to get it under control so he won't wake up the bus. It's an hour to the hotel; he'd rather not spend that time getting glared at by a cranky Mike Sarver. Kris is rubbing Adam's belly in an attempt to hush him, and that's distracting enough that Adam is able to shut himself up. Very gently, he takes Kris's wrist and urges it away; for the billionth time he wishes Kris weren't quite so comfortable with his sexuality. Lord protect us from hot straight boys, they know not what they do. Adam squeezes Kris around the shoulders, just to show there are no hard feelings. "Confess your sins, my son."
"Protestants don't confess."
"And Jews don't take confession. Don't pussy out, come on, tell me."
Kris's voice takes on that strangely serious note again. "Are you sure you want to know?"
Adam can almost feel the way the world slows down, in tempo with the words. Kris isn't joking this time; his body has stilled in the crook of Adam's arm. He rubs Kris's shoulder. "Hit me."
Tilting his head back, Kris looks Adam in the eyes. He looks strange, scared but kind of resigned. "I'm not who you think I am."
Well, of course not. There's no way anybody's that good and nice and kind without some kind of dark side. "Doesn't matter," Adam tells him, rubbing his shoulder. "I know what I need to know, and you're still my friend. And you don't have to tell me whatever it is until you're ready."
Kris smiles, sad but hopeful. Adam wonders if Kris told this secret to someone before and they couldn't deal. If maybe they left him because of it. If maybe they should be repeatedly punched in the face by a big theatre queen with heavy silver rings. Kris folds his arms over his chest, pushing a little closer into Adam's arm. "Promise?"
"I promise," Adam says, supremely confident.
So Kris tells him.
~
It went like this: he came down from a mountain in Morocco, and he had green eyes. When he checked his driver's license, he turned them back to brown. On the mountaintop, a holy man lay rotting; the grass and trees around the hut were brown and dead. It kept on raining.
He took his wasted body back to Arkansas and nursed it back to health, smiled at his parents and married his girl, and he had a good life.
And then Daniel decided they were going to try out for American Idol.
~
"It's totally fine," Adam babbles, pushing his door open. They just got in, Matt and Mike joking around about how much they were looking forward to real beds instead of the bus, and Adam had to keep it together all the way from the bus to the concierge to the fucking elevator.
Kris walks in after him, calm as a mountain lake, hands in his pockets. Just like he always is. "You're sure? I mean, I'd understand if, you know."
Adam's already at the mini-bar, pulling out a handful of vodka bottles. "It's completely okay," he says, hoping his voice stays steady. Hoping he doesn't throw up. He unscrews the caps one after the other and drops them, ignoring them as they ping away across the counter. "I just. I need a drink. You've probably had worse reactions," he laughs, and winces to hear the hysterical edge on it.
"Lots worse," Kris agrees pleasantly.
Adam fits the bottles between his fingers two at a time and pours into a big heavy glass that isn't nearly big enough. He downs it, feels it burn going down, then coming right back up to the back of his throat. Only years of practice keeps the liquor down where it can do some good, can kill some of the thoughts in his head.
His fucking knees are trembling.
He turns his head so it looks like he's looking over his shoulder at Kris; really, he's looking at the carpet. "Do you think I could... get some time alone? I just need to... drink some more."
Kris stands up and takes one step toward Adam, and it's like every tiny little movement is coming through a fucking megaphone. Adam's head is pounding. "I thought," Kris says, sounding young and even shy, yes, shy. "You said you were okay."
Adam closes his eyes, gives himself just that half second alone before he turns around and makes himself smile, makes himself walk forward and put his hands on Kris's deceptively narrow shoulders. There's such muscle under there, he's always felt - Adam feels the hysteria bubbling up again - felt so solid.
No. Adam is made of steel. Adam can do this. He looks Kris right in his warm, honey-brown eyes. "I am okay. I can handle it. It doesn't change who you are."
He's not okay. He can't handle this at all. It changes everything.
Kris smiles at him. He's still so cute, so charming, and when he puts his heavy hands on Adam's arms, he's no bigger or meaner or whatever. He's still the same old Kris, or he feels that way. "You can forget all about this," he says, in the tone of an offer. "I wouldn't mind if you did."
"No," Adam says immediately. He steps back, just in case. "No, I'm okay. I'm... I want to know."
Kris puts his hands up. "Okay. Whatever you want to do. You can change your mind any time."
Adam nods and turns back to the bar. With shaking fingers, heart pounding so hard against his ribs that it aches, he starts digging out more bottles.
"I'm just gonna go get some shut-eye," Kris says. "...Adam?"
"Yeah," Adam says, throwing a bright smile over his shoulder. "Yeah, sure. I'll see you in the morning."
Kris heads over to the door, moving so quietly. Too quietly. "I'll see you," he says, and he's gone.
Adam drinks everything in the mini-bar. It's cool, though - by the time he gets to the scotch, he can't taste it. He wakes up with his handler shaking him awake, face-first on the cool bathroom tile in a puddle of his own puke, and the worst part is that the handler doesn't say a fucking word.
~
It went like this: Kris, Matt and Scott all crammed together on the piano bench, picking out melodies. Danny walked up and sang a bit of gospel that didn't quite fit, but he sang it well and so the others shrugged affably and changed the tune.
Scott got up to hit the kitchen. Adam, kicked back on the couch with a magazine, rolled his eyes.
"This is a good one," Kris said, noodling around on the melody, changing it up with a faster beat. "Should be about a girl."
Danny's scowl wasn't visible on his face, but you could hear it in his voice. "God's not good enough?"
Matt started with hey, man, but Kris only smiled. "Nothing new about it. Here, listen." He picked out a song on the keys, something in a major chord, and when his voice lifted up, the words were about God sending sunshine and rain and wheat. Or something. Adam tapped his toes to it, because it was Kris singing. Danny nodded along, and then Kris picked it up and added a shimmy to his shoulders, and before anybody knew what was happening, he started belting out an old Ray Charles song. It was exactly the same song, there couldn't be any denying it, and Kris sang about how his woman gave him everything he could ever want - a woman, and not God.
Matt laughed at the same time as Adam, delighted. Danny crossed his arms over his chest, but he had to smile too, and Kris just sang on.
Adam relaxed on the couch, and flipped to the horoscopes.
~
He shuts the laptop and rubs his knuckles against his eyes to clear the blue glow from his retinas. It's maybe four in the morning; he's been studying for hours and he'll never sleep. He bought a subscription to the online Britannica, cross-referencing with Wikipedia as he goes, and he isn't finding anything new anymore.
He goes to the minibar and grabs two vodkas, pours them both out into a glass and takes it to the table where he sits and stares at it. Just like Kris, it looks simple and clean. A good life, he'd said in his plain-folks drawl. Just one good one, from birth to death, and when he was a kid in Conway, he hadn't even remembered who he really was.
Adam found nothing in the books about a game like this. There was no movie-style loophole to get back into Heaven, no part of the Talmud or Torah that fit. There was nothing in the New Testament or the Quran, from the overviews he'd skimmed. There was some stuff about fallen angels who tempt people away from Allah, plenty on how the devil lies and lies, and this whole codex of apocryphal Qabbalah stuff. Adam had checked the ancient mythology parts too, just to be sure, only usually when the Gods were fighting, the only thing humans had to do was shut up and get out of the way or get stomped on.
Adam rubs his hands over his face, vodka untouched on the table, head pounding like he's already drank a gallon of it. Whatever else, there's one pretty hard and fast rule, supported by dozens of religions all over the world: whatever Kris is doing, it's no good. Humanity's going to fucking regret it if he finishes. Someone has to stop him.
Someone.
Adam picks up the glass, swirls the vodka at the bottom for a second, and then kicks it back. Two seconds later, he's in the bathroom, swearing off all booze forever. Skin hot, throat burning, he wonders if God's tapped him for this. And what if he's supposed to turn into some kind of prophet now? Quit cursing, quit booze, quit partying, devote his life to God and live according to Halakha law, shit. He starts to panic as he imagines having this sick feeling whenever he's in bed with someone, like a guy someone, and how he'd rather live free for a week and then die horribly, he'd rather have his fucking eyes gouged out than not be able to have sex because of some ridiculous rule he'd never fucking agreed to anyway, who the fuck decided that it was some kind of sin...
Leaning his head against the cool porcelain, Adam breathes in and out, in and out. God has a reason for everything, that's what they always said. Adam's just got to get back to basics if he's going to figure out what the fuck it is that he's supposed to do, here.
Adam dropped out of Hebrew school, which, okay, later he has to remember to have a serious talk with God about how he chooses his emissaries, because next time it'd probably be good to have somebody who has the first fucking clue what he's doing. But he is a big fan of stories. He watches movies and he reads comic books, so he knows a little about how it's supposed to work: if you're a villain, and you go good for a while, they'll trust you. Maybe they'll let you back where you shouldn't be, and you can fuck things up from there. In fact, if Kevin Smith movies have taught him nothing else, it's that you can't just let the bad guys just go do their thing, or the world will explode. Maybe there's nothing in Wikipedia about it, but it's the only thing Adam can think of.
One good life. There's only one way to screw that up. Adam's guessing that offenses against humanity aren't really a big deal to someone like Kris, but to sin against God has to hold some significance, no matter how bad you are. There's a reason that so many people do it. And it can't be a tattoo or a bacon cheeseburger; it's gotta be a big one if it's gonna count.
Adam gets up off the bathroom floor and goes to his table. He opens his laptop, types Commandments into the search box, and starts to calm down.
~
It went like this: Adam made his entrance into the green room backstage in San Jose and found Kris watching the local news, sprawled out on the couch. He laughed. "Do you even believe those guys?"
Kris grinned. "I kinda want to go out and talk to them, you know?"
"Ugh, no way," Adam said, rolling his eyes. "Those guys, they just say the most offensive shit they can and wait for somebody to get mad. It's a con, that's all."
Mike was there, arms folded across his chest like the bear everybody always said he was. "It's not right, to use God's name like that. Just to get somebody mad at you."
Kris smiled at him, and Adam felt the same warm glow he always did when he caught Kris pitying people for not thinking at all. Kris caught Adam catching him, and they traded a much sharper grin.
Allison was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the table, doing her nails like they didn't have somebody to do that for them. "I don't care, man. I'd go pop one of 'em right now if we didn't have a fucking show to do." She flipped off the TV, her black fingernail sparkling.
Adam squinted at her. "Is that my nail polish?"
"...No."
Danny, musing aloud, interrupted. "But aren't you mad? Have you seen their posters? Some people really believe that, even if they don't."
Adam shrugged. "I don't care. I believe what I believe, and I'm not gonna change their minds. So it's kind of live and let live, you know? They can believe whatever they want, and so can I. And if that's, like, part Jewish and part ancient Egypt and part San Diego hippie, nobody's gonna tell me I can't, y'know?"
"It's still not right," Mike said, gesturing at the idiots on TV. "They shouldn't be allowed."
Kris shook his head. "What're you gonna do, man? Are you gonna make the rules about what people can and can't believe?"
"I never said that," Mike scoffed.
It never ceased to amaze Adam, the openness and understanding that came out of a fucking worship leader from Arkansas. He was like a walking, talking reminder from God, directly to Adam, that openness and understanding had to go both ways. He went and sat down next to Kris, bumped his shoulder. Kris bumped back, gave him this big, gorgeous smile, and Adam forgot about the protesters entirely.
~
It takes time to get himself warmed up to the idea. And not even because of what Kris is; that part is fucking surreal enough that it barely factors in. No, the trouble is that Adam can't figure out how the fuck he's supposed to approach it.
Exactly one Commandment seemed applicable to Kris, and it's the one that makes Adam's hackles rise most. Of course it's guilt; shit, he'd thought enough about it before, when Kris was just a really handsy southern boy with an ass you could bounce quarters off. And Adam really likes Katy. But of course, she doesn't have any idea, and this time it's for the good of humanity, so whatever.
No, the problem isn't that. It's that Adam isn't Helen of fucking Troy. He can't just put it out there and see if Kris is interested, because he isn't. Gay and straight never really had any meaning for Kris - Adam pauses for a second to think how much sense that makes now - but he wants to live his good life. He'll see the sin coming. He's kind of a fucking expert.
In the end, Adam's left with only one real option. Kris must have confided in him for a reason, he must have done it because he wanted something. Kris has never struck Adam as lonely, not even before, but he always took the view of an outsider looking in at the world. That too makes sense, in retrospect. It's one of the reasons the two of them always got along so well, and it was nice to have someone to share that with.
Adam's going to have to bank on the hope that it was nice for Kris, too.
He's been avoiding contact with Kris for the last week. People haven't noticed yet, but Kris has - Adam can feel the faint hum of disappointment whenever he slips out of a room just after Kris's entrance, or reaches forward just as Kris leans back. So this time, when the crowd is roaring and the ten of them are on stage, Adam turns to Kris and shouts Don't Stop Believing at the top of his lungs as he lowers himself down on one knee.
The look on Kris's face is indescribable. There's surprise, of course, but there's radiant joy, too. Adam feels a little dizzy, looking up at him; Kris is so happy that the light is starting to break around him like it did before, when Adam said prove it and Kris had. It had felt like his head was coming apart, his eyes on fire, all sound was deafening, and now it's creeping in at the edges of his senses again and he's on stage in front of ten thousand people, and isn't that a biblical number or something, people should fucking warn you...
He stands up and faces the crowd, shaking it off, but he can feel the warmth in the air around him, curling around his shoulders and making his knees shake and his heart pound.
There's supposed to be a fucking angel in that skin.
They close out the set and crowd down into the backstage labyrinth with the others. Adam plants his teeth in his bottom lip, forces himself to take Kris by the hand and pull him aside. Kris goes along easily, willingly, and Adam feels almost giddy with it. It's going to work, he's sure; it's just the two of them, it's just like before. He can do this.
"I'm glad you did that," Kris says, when they're hidden between stages and under the deafening noise. He takes Adam's hand and holds it, like a child, and his smile is bright and brilliant even in the dark. "I'm glad we're still friends."
"Of course we are," Adam says, feeling absolutely stupid now that he's in the moment. He knows what he means to say, but it's coming out obvious and clunky. "I like you. You're... you've always been..."
"It's cool, I get it," Kris says, and Adam could swear there's actual light around him. He gestures at himself it a bit sheepishly. "People get overwhelmed when they can see it. I hope you get used to it with time, but I don't know, I mean, nobody..."
Adam knows exactly what to say, can calculate it perfectly. Then he grips Kris's hand tighter and can actually feel the sympathy rising up in him. "Nobody who could see you ever stuck around long enough for you to know."
The crack in that glow is almost visible. Kris's smile turns bittersweet, and the world turns blue and cool around him. "Yeah."
"I'm here," Adam tells him firmly. "I'm not going anywhere."
Kris steps in, wraps his arms around Adam's waist and cuddles close like he always did. It's terrifying now to hug back, to let his hand drift up into Kris's hair and hold him. Adam's heart is pounding under Kris's cheek; he's sure Kris will hear it and call him on it and know. He's no fucking good at this; who the hell would ever be good at this?
But Kris just holds on and sighs against Adam's shoulder, unmoving.
He's never going to get a better chance. He pulls back a bit, watches the disappointment reflect on the walls as Kris starts to let go. Adam wills his fingers not to shake as he brings them around, tips Kris's chin up and leans in to kiss him.
It's like touching his mouth to electrified molasses. His entire body feels too hot, he smells char and tastes apples. Everything slows down as his eyes start to close, as he starts to forget.
And then Kris pulls away.
Drenched with cold air, Adam is shocked and shivering. Kris touches his cheek. "I can't," he says softly. "I'd like to. But I... I shouldn't."
Blinking at him, Adam's at a loss for words.
Kris only smiles. "I have to go call my wife," he says, and turns to walk away.
Adam stares after him, and can't say a word.
That kiss was devastating. That's a fucking angel that had his mouth on Adam's, it felt different all the way to the marrow of Adam's bones, and now that he's leaving, it seems like all the air is gone. But Kris was interested. Adam knows that, he felt it. He was fucking chosen for this because he can feel with his hands and his heart when a kiss is supposed to be more, and that kiss should have been way, way more.
Freezing, shaking in his boots in a backstage hole, Adam tells himself that he'll just have to try again.
~
It went like this: Adam stopped himself just short of walking into the green room when he saw who was inside. He couldn't keep a smile off his face when he saw them together; they were like matching dolls that should come with a little house and kids and a catcher's mitt and a barbeque. He started to sneak away, wanting to give them their privacy.
"Adam," Katy called. "Is that you?"
He stopped, turned and walked back into the room, a smile already on his face. "Busted."
Katy beamed at him. "You weren't gonna say hi? Do I smell? I washed my hair and everything."
Adam walked through the door already laughing, and found a pair of brightly silly smiles waiting for him. They were sitting on a couch, Kris on one end with Katy's bare feet in his lap. Adam leaned down to kiss Katy's temple, and gave her a one-armed hug that made her blush. "You're a field of roses, honey. How're you doing?"
"Fine," she said, wiggling her toes. Kris rubbed at them a little, and Katy sighed. "I'm asserting my conjugal rights."
Adam looked at her sideways. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Kris grinned and patted Katy's ankle. "Oh, these are the rights she asserts. The other ones she kind of more demands?"
Katy dug her toes sharply into Kris's side as Adam blushed. The room filled with giggling until Katy pulled over to one side of the couch. "I'll show you demanding later," she promised with a squint to her eye.
Adam pressed a hand to his chest, still smiling. "I can't decide which one of you is Laurel and which one is Hardy."
Kris looked over at her with the kind of sweet care you see on postcards, on TV. "She's Abbott, I'm Costello."
Katy had already closed her eyes and leaned back against the arm of the couch. She wiggled her toes in her husband's lap. "Get cracking, kid. Love, honor and obey." Kris dug his thumb into her instep, and Adam watched Katy sneak a warm, helplessly happy look of love under her eyelashes.
Matching outfits, Adam thought. They should definitely have come with matching outfits. Carefully, he memorized the happy picture and added it to the mental list of reasons he should never try to turn his little crush into anything else.
~
It's a hotel night when Adam decides to try again. It's been a week and a half since the kiss, and things between them have been significantly less horrifying. Adam catches glimpses of the truth now and then, when Kris smiles at him behind people's backs and the world starts to melt around the edges. But mostly, the temptation to pretend that none of it ever happened is overwhelming.
He doesn't want to do anything bad. He doesn't want to hurt Katy, and when he's doing an especially good job of denial, he doesn't want to hurt Kris either. He wants his smart, funny, human friend to be happy and have a good life and be something as simple and normal as the American Idol. (Idol. Hilarious.) Adam just wants to make music. He wants to have some vague, comfortable idea of what God is and what He might want, and not think about it most of the time. He wants the ideas to stop scratching at the back of his mind; he wants to not feel the weight of God's eyes on him all the time, every fucking minute. There's too much pressure, and he wants to go back to when he didn't have to figure out the grand divine plan. He wants his new tattoo to stop fucking itching. He wants it all to go away.
But Kris looks at him sometimes. Even before the big revelation, he used to look, and Adam used to think it was cute in a curious straight boy kind of way. But now it's not just looking, now Adam knows that Kris has all the necessary experience to know what he's asking. Now, he's supposed to want it too.
There's a plan at work, Adam's sure, and he's a part of it. As they all hoist their bags onto their shoulders and stumble off the bus, through the lobby, Kris is right at his side as if by accident. When the handler comes to pass out the key cards, Adam's room and Kris's are side by side.
The world is turning under their feet, and the stars aligning over their heads.
Upstairs, Adam drops his stuff on the hotel bed and goes into the bathroom to stare at his reflection. He doesn't recognize his own face; it looks put together wrong. He runs the sink and scrubs off all his makeup, and it doesn't help.
The knock on his door is hardly unexpected; Kris often needs to wind down after a long day. Adam is stifling a laugh when he opens the door.
"What?" Kris asks, standing there patiently.
Adam waves him inside. "I was just thinking," he says, letting Kris pass him, closing the door. "It was stupid."
Kris smiles, the world behind him immediately wavering like a desert highway at noon. "Tell me anyway. I like stupid sometimes."
It's an effort to keep looking at him, but Adam does it anyway and feels his body starting to stir. He can feel the pull of fate on him, and knowing what he's planning to do is transmuting the fear and nerves into desire. His stomach's full of knots, but his cock knows what to do. Adam licks his lips. "I was just thinking how you always need to chill out after a show, or when we get in like this. And... I just wondered if you were always like that. Did you have to go bounce on your toes after you cracked open Eden?"
Kris looks so startled that Adam's throat closes on a high-pitched giggle. The thought is too huge, he sounds insane. And then Kris starts laughing too, in his warm and beautiful way, and the room is filled with a satiny heat that has Adam responding immediately. He smiles at Kris, feeling honest affection for him in the middle of everything. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," Kris says, smiling back at him. Everything's okay. Everything's great.
Adam lowers his voice, even though they're alone. "How come you don't tell people who you are? I mean, these days there have to be people who'd think it was cool."
Looking away, Kris's blush shows on his cheeks. "Well, sure. But not everybody can handle a celestial being out of their human guise? I don't know if that makes sense, but like... most humans can't physically deal with it, they see it and they die." Kris looks up at him again, and his eyes are shifting color as Adam watches. "You have to be someone special... like you, Adam."
He cups his hand to Kris's face without thinking. He's meant for this. It's part of the plan.
This time, when Adam kisses him, Kris presses close instantly. It's overwhelming; Adam's head spins, his body's on fire. The skin is hot against his fingers and all the breath is leaving his body. He pulls away and drags at the air with his lungs. "Kris."
"Sorry," Kris pants, his hands burning against Adam's biceps, eyes closed. The smell of smoke is in the air. "That's my fault, I. I can. One second." It ticks by, and the heat in the air starts to fade. He pulls back and the black material of Adam's shirt sticks to his palms. Kris smiles, crooked and abashed. "I wasn't expecting that."
Adam takes a step toward him, feeling drunk though he hasn't touched a drop. Kris's eyes are black in the shadows thrown by the bedside lamp, and Adam fixates on them. "Can you keep that under control?"
"Yeah," Kris nods, reaching out. He touches Adam's chest, tentative and soft, and it doesn't burn.
Adam grabs him by the wrist and pulls him forward. "Stay here," Adam says, fitting his mouth to Kris's neck. He smells feathers there, incense and cotton. "Stay with me. Fuck, I want you."
Kris shivers in his arms, and it's like Adam can feel the body under his hands become fragile.
"I want you," he repeats, this time making sure the words have the real meaning behind them, not just sex. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."
Fists curl at the small of Adam's back, stretching his shirt taut. Kris's breath is hot against his collarbone, and he mumbles something unintelligible, some breath of words against Adam's shirt.
"What's that?" Adam pulls back, traces his thumb over Kris's cheek.
He looks up and his eyes are a wide, bright green, the color of old glass in the summer sun. His beautiful features are even more so, gold shining under his skin. He presses against Adam, belly to belly and thigh to thigh, and it's so desperately hot that Adam can hardly stand. Kris is everything, drowning him, the smell of his skin and the halo burning out Adam's retinas; it's too much to take.
"Say my name," Kris breathes, leaning up on his toes to press his mouth against Adam's jaw.
Adam swallows hard, closes his eyes and watches the fading impression of Kris glow against the darkness. He considers for a second if he can pretend not to know what Kris wants, if he can get out of it. But that's now how he's going to win this. He presses his lips tight together, tilts his head back and threads his fingers through Kris's hair. "Which one?"
Kris hesitates, then edges his fingers under Adam's shirt; a human temperature this time. "Do you know what the Muslims call me?"
All the research he did was good for something. Adam leans closer, lowers his voice. "Shaitan."
The hard, compact body against his shudders, head to toe. Kris's lips smudge against his skin, wet and hot, and he pushes his hands under Adam's shirt. "That's the closest. To the real one, I mean."
Adam knows this part, he knows it. As gently as he can, he pushes Kris back and turns them around, walks them to the bed. Kris won't let go, keeps pushing closer, and by the time he thumps down onto the mattress, he takes Adam's shirt with him. Adam doesn't give a damn; he drops to his knees by the bedside and opens Kris's belt. "Tell me," he says, looking up and seeing how the light makes Kris's features perfect. How he hid it all this time. "Tell me what it really is, so I can say it."
Kris spreads his thighs and touches Adam's cheek, brushes the hair out of his eyes. His smile is full of love and suffering, in equal measure. "Why do you always have to know, huh? You always get me in trouble, but I can never tell you no."
The implication there - that they've done this before, and Adam just doesn't remember - is too terrifying to contemplate. Adam presses his face against Kris's thigh and bites at him through the material, easing his zipper open and pushing his hand inside. The silky curve of Kris's erection fits into his hand perfectly. "Just tell me."
"Oh." Kris's eyes have closed, his mouth is open and soft. He leans back on his hands, hips lifting ever so slightly into the touch. "Oh, Adam, I."
He ducks to the side and presses a kiss to Kris's belly, strokes his hand along the thick length. He has to shift a little to ease the pressure in his jeans; Kris is so fucking gorgeous like this, like Adam always knew he would be. "Tell me," he breathes against the skin. "Please."
"Shh." Kris shudders, his fingers edging tentatively into Adam's hair. And then he says a word that sounds like Shaitan but isn't, a word that ends in the name of God like the names of the angels. Adam can't speak more than a word or two of Hebrew, but this word means something important and he knows it like he knows his own name, like he knew he was gay, pure instinct. This name is the dawn of time, God's first thoughts creating the sun and the stars and the earth, the first morning in the universe and the first angel of God to behold these wonders with inexpressible joy. The name of the son of morning.
Adam presses his mouth to Kris's flesh and repeats this word, and Kris shivers with force enough to shake the air around them. Somewhere far away there is a deep, cracking rumble - thunder, maybe, or an earthquake. Adam opens over him, takes him inside, and Kris's perfect voice starts to scratch.
~
It went like this: Adam knew what Kris was and he knew what he was going to do, and maybe he talked to his mother, maybe he talked with his publicist on the phone. It was kind of a haze and maybe he didn't care, maybe it didn't matter what he did or what happened to him because things would go on without him, the world could keep living. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't a garden, but it was good enough and he lived in it and he loved it so he'd save it and die, he was going to die when Kris realized, oh God, could he be saved? If he was chosen, didn't that mean he would be saved? And if he was saved, would he still be himself and has he always been himself or was this ordained from the start? What if all his hippie astrology bullshit has always been bullshit and it was always just like this, it isn't fair, not to anybody, and when he ordered his coffee at Starbucks and someone pushed in front of him in line it made him so fucking crazy, because didn't they know what he was going to do for them? Didn't they realize who he was, who he had to be? And so they called him a fucking diva but really it's just polite, what the fuck kind of person tries to butt in front of the saviour of the human race at the fucking coffee line, okay? Or in front of anybody! It's motherfucking rude, and when his handler and his bodyguard looked at him like he was coked out of his tree he just rolled his eyes because they could think that if they wanted to but he wasn't high, he wasn't drunk, he wasn't crazy, and if maybe sometimes he would sit in his bathroom at three in the morning, if he couldn't sleep, if he hadn't bothered to turn on the light and he would just sit in the bathtub and stare at the light of the moon on the tile, that didn't mean he was crazy because anybody would.
He was only human.
~
Adam lies in bed and watches steam curl away from Kris's body and up to the ceiling. His job is done, a major sin staining the life of Kris Allen. A broken Commandment, and the world is safe. "So tell me," he smiles, his body boneless and replete. "What was the big plan?"
Kris rolls his head to the side on the pillow and lifts a quizzical eyebrow. He's still sheened in sweat, his shoulders and chest lightening from red to pink.
Adam waves a vague hand. "You know. One good life, from birth to death. What was it?"
"Oh," Kris says distantly. "That. I don't really know, I was just... waiting. Got bored killing time and decided it'd be a nice experiment. It's not important now."
Adam feels his body go cold, feels ice forming up around his heart. He can't breathe. "...What?"
Kris looks at him again, concerned.
"For what?" Adam manages to say. "Waiting for what?"
The smile is beautiful, Kris's sweet self shining underneath. Adam sees a history of those smiles in his mind, back through the tour and the press junkets and the show itself, a thousand smiles that always seemed familiar. Kris reaches out and threads his fingers through Adam's, squeezes them warmly. "For you, of course. Adam, son of Enoch the Metatron, Keeper of Secrets, Scribe of the Heavens, who was assumed unto Heaven and whose line is the line of man." The smile quirks up, sharper. "I wasn't sure it was you, and then you wouldn't shut up about your rising sign."
Adam stares at him. "But. I'm just."
Kris blushes, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. "You're special. I've been waiting for you for a long time, just... hoping we could be friends." He shrugs one shoulder, averts his eyes to hide what Adam already knows is there - loneliness that has too much history to measure. The word eons is confining and small.
Adam sits up. He isn't breathing, but he knows he can still stand, walk into the bathroom and turn on the light. He can still stare at his naked body in the mirror and catalogue the many flaws and quirks that make it up, the ones he knows by heart. A cluster of freckles that melt into each other, so it's more of a birthmark if you're not looking closely. When they were young, his little brother used to say it was a scar where his alien leaders had implanted him with a need for glitter.
"It doesn't mean you're different," Kris offers from the doorway.
Adam turns and looks at him, at the jeans hastily drawn on for modesty and the sex-tousled hair, at the pink on his cheeks and the shy, hesitant way he touches the door frame. He wishes he could say something, anything, which would make sense. But if he opens his mouth, what would come out... he doesn't even know. Maybe Hebrew. Maybe Kris is already speaking Hebrew.
"Aramaic," Kris says, and though Adam puts the last sentence under grindingly bright scrutiny, he can't understand how any of it works. If it's real.
"I don't," he says, looking at Kris and shaking his head. He would say something else, finish the sentence, but what language would he be speaking? He starts to laugh and then can't stop; he falls to the floor and wedges himself into the space between the toilet and the bathtub and he can't stop fucking laughing. Tears are running down his face and he can't close his mouth and things are fading away, becoming distant. It's all mattering less. He's going somewhere else.
Kris comes to kneel beside him. The touch to his face pulls him back, and he looks up into Kris's sad green eyes.
"I used to hate you," Kris says softly. "I didn't understand how fragile you are, that you couldn't hear or see. That you were just trying to do what you thought was right. But I could never hate you now, Adam. Close your eyes, all right? Just go to sleep. And when you wake up, everything will be all right again. I promise."
Adam nods, shaking and cold, and closes his eyes. Kris's mouth touches his, a sweet and soft kiss, and suddenly he is warm again, and so very tired.
~
It went like this: Top 36 group number rehearsal, sweating their asses off in a tiny studio and swilling water. It was hard enough to just sound decent on national fucking television without also trying to match your voice to the voices of eleven strangers, and this was the logic that Hot Guy had used when he sat down next to Adam and started talking.
"I never expected to get this far," the guy was saying. "I just came out to support my brother, and then bam. Here I am."
Adam nods, and watches the guy in the hat (Hat Guy) trying to be a little less acoustic and a little more like the girl with pink hair (Allison). "I hear you, man. It's all still kinda surreal. But you gotta have confidence."
Hot Guy laughs softly. "Yeah, I guess you don't have any problem with that." Adam shoots him a look - is he calling Adam arrogant? But the guy ducks his head adorably, and blushes. "I just mean you seem to know what you're doing."
Adam laughs easily, wanting to let him off the hook. "It's all a clever charade, honey, believe me. I'm freaking out as much as anybody. I just try not to show it on camera. What's your name again?"
"Kris," he says, with a smile. It has a shade of wickedness on it, that smile, and Adam's sure nobody would catch it if they weren't looking for it. He doesn't know why he saw it just now.
"Tell me what you want, Kris. Five years from now, where are you gonna be?"
There's a moment of silence as Kris blinks at him. "I'm not sure. Probably Arkansas."
Adam shakes his head. "That's no way to think, man. You gotta visualize where you're gonna be, and believe you're going to be there, you know? You gotta have a goal, or you'll never get there." Kris nods, but Adam can tell he doesn't get it. "Take me, for instance," he says. "I don't know if I'm gonna win this thing. Maybe not. But I'll get exposure out of it, if I can get far enough, and that'll be enough to land me gigs. Five years? I'll be touring with my first album by then. Maybe sooner if I get far enough."
Kris looks sideways at him, speculative. "And people are just gonna want to hear you?"
Adam shrugs and smiles at him. "I hope so. Man, I wanna be a rock star. Don't you?"
~
Los Angeles, 2010
Adam's nervous, but it's giving him energy. His fingertips crackle with it, his feet won't stay still.
"Quit fucking fidgeting," says Danielle from the stool beside him. She's got one of the eyeshadows and is experimenting around the corners of her eyes.
The makeup artist du jour (Stephan) scowls at Adam and pokes a fingertip under his chin to keep him steady. "Thank you," Stephan says to Danielle, not looking away from Adam's face.
Adam makes a concerted effort to sit still for the next twenty seconds, and then he has to look, has to fuck with it. Stephan throws up his hands in defeat and wanders away, and Danielle calls Adam a diva, and it's almost normal enough to get the nerves down to manageable levels. When he's done up enough, he turns to her. "This okay?"
"You look like a hooker," she says, not bothering to even glance at him.
He sighs. "Where's Alisan? Where are the boys?"
Danielle finally looks over, and immediately begins smudging with her pinky finger. "Brad and Ferras are vetoing your groupies. Cassidy's schmoozing in VIP and I think Ali is still in costuming."
"She can't keep anything," Adam says, suddenly scared for a whole other reason.
"Have Sam search her on the way out," Danielle smiles. "Okay. You're beautiful and I just heard them calling ten minutes."
The door pops open and an assistant pokes his head in. "Adam, ten minutes. They need you up front."
He and Danielle both laugh, and then crush together in a hug. "I love you," Adam says.
"Break a leg," Danielle tells him seriously.
Adam's out the door and halfway to his mark before he remembers to ask about Kris, but Danielle's too far away. "Fuck," he mutters, and the assistant next to him ignores that and keeps reviewing, like Adam wasn't in rehearsal every day for the last week. "I'm good," he says, and waves said assistant off.
At his mark, everyone's ready. He can see Monte across from him in the wings, and he pastes a bright smile onto his face and waves. Monte flips him off, the surly bastard, and Adam's smile turns genuine.
First night. First show. Tour kickoff. There's near fifty thousand people out there; the fucking thing sold out. Adam's heart is aching like he just drank a pot of coffee, and all he wants is to get it started already. His palms are sweating. His makeup's going to run. His stomach has Mothra in it.
"Hey," says a warm voice behind him, and he whips around to see Kris coming up.
Adam wraps his arms around Kris's compact frame and squeezes hard. He's so solid, just like always, the anchor in Adam's crazy fucking ride. "Hey yourself. Didn't want to go on without seeing you."
Kris holds him at arm's length and grins at him, so huge. "I'm so proud of you, man. You're gonna kill this thing."
"Oh, God, I fucking hope so." Adam glances out at the enormous milling crowd, the house lights still up. He still can't believe they booked this fucking stadium. He's got appeal, but not this much appeal, not the last time he checked. "That's a lot of people."
"There were more watching us on Idol," Kris shrugs. "This is chump change compared to that. It's not like Brian May's out there or something."
Adam nods, feeling his stomach settle a bit. He brings his eyes back where things are safe, back to Kris. "Where are you gonna be? VIP?"
"Maybe in a bit. I want to be up front for some of it, though." Kris smiles so wide, so bright, his glorious green eyes lit by reflections from the stage. Adam feels a surge of love for him, the only one who understands what it's like to be in a spotlight exactly like this.
He squeezes Kris again, tight. "Try not to get too much glitter on you."
Kris's voice is mashed against Adam's shirt. "In the front row at your show? Doesn't seem possible." The assistants come around, their panicked voices calling five minutes, five minutes, we're on in five, people! "I should go," Kris says. "I'll be right up there."
"Better be," Adam says. "Or I'm calling you out."
"You would," Kris laughs, and his face is so familiar.
Every now and then, Adam will get this creepy crawly sense of deja vu, even though it's crazy because he used to wake up to this face every morning in the mansion. It's like he should remember something about Kris, something important, but it's always just out of reach. Adam shrugs it off and kisses the top of Kris's head. "Love you."
The look he gets in return, for some reason, seems a little bit sad. "Love you too," Kris says, and then he's gone into the pits of the stage, weaving between equipment and out of sight.
The minutes tick past, the show grinds into being, and when the explosions start, Adam marches up on stage to the beat. Thousands of voices shriek together, a deafening wave of sound, and Adam lifts both hands to the sky and throws horns.
~
THE DEVIL, had he fidelity,
Would be the finest friend
Because he has ability,
But Devils cannot mend.
Perfidy is the virtue
That would he but resign,
The Devil, so amended,
Were durably divine.
Emily Dickinson
help_haiti! hurrah! this is neither of their fictions.adam/kris, R. muchas gracias to
traveller, roga and jamesinboots for their invaluable assistance.summary: "Tell me a secret. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
The Finest Friend
Morocco, 2005
It's hot. Rain thunders down around the hut and it makes the air thick and fragrant, but his lips are dry with the sucking, poisonous heat. He tries to reach for the window, just a drop or two would be something, but he's so weak; the Imam's gentle hands push him back down into his sweat-soaked sheets. The Imam's hands are dry too; dry as paper and dark as the dirt.
It's been so long in this place, he can't remember. His head is throbbing and his mouth is dry, and he's sure that once he did something other than lie on the ground but he doesn't know what it was. He can't think anymore. He doesn't know his name; he doesn't know where he belongs.
The Imam is praying, his sibilant voice forming the shahadah. Lâ ilâha illallâh, the words ringing in his ears like echoes in the mountains. He wishes he could pray too, but his throat bubbles with blood when he tries. At least it's wet.
The stink of broken bricks of hash drifts past his head. It smells like chemicals; when he twists his head away, it smells like bile. His body isn't his own anymore; he can feel it trying to kill him. He tries so hard to sink into his mind, to live there, to remember something. Anything.
Autumn daffodil husks, crumbling on the pavement as it wavers in the heat. His friends call out to him - we have things to do, we have to go, stop looking at every little thing.
It's his and not his - it was far away, and it was too long ago. He's slipping away and his heart is slowing even though he's terrified; it's all wrong. The Imam's voice pronounces the names of God, and that's something he knows, so he clings to it as long as he can.
The rain is slowing down outside, and it's hot. It's still too hot.
~
The bus is quiet, but that makes sense because it's closing on two in the morning. They're on their way to a hotel, a glorious place of rest and showers where Adam will strip naked and climb between the sheets and forget his entire life for eight perfect hours.
But that's not happening yet. At present, he's got his boots up on the bench seat with Kris sprawled beside him. All the other guys are in their bunks with the exception of Matt and Danny, who are doing something unimaginable with the contents of the mini-fridge and a magic marker.
"Pact," Kris says, his voice whisper-soft, as all of them have taken to doing these days. They're all wearing out and are on strict doctor's orders to conserve as much as possible.
Adam squints down at Kris. "Mm?"
Kris peers back at him. "Pact. I won't eat anything else out of that fridge if you won't."
"Oh," Adam says. "Yeah, deal. They're probably huffing that Sharpie."
As if on cue, Danny bursts out in muffled giggles.
Adam grins, and then has to yawn; hears Kris doing the same beside him in the next second, which he knew was gonna happen. Being part of this hodgepodge family is second nature now. At some point, the tour is going to end and Adam will get to see his real friends and family again, and that'll be nice. But he'll definitely miss these guys.
Kris pokes his arm, his earnest brown eyes aimed right at Adam's heart. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself," Adam smiles.
"Tell me a secret. Tell me something about you that I don't know."
"Uh. I dunno. I'm an Aquarius?"
Kris rolls his eyes. "The western hemisphere knows that, Adam."
"Gimme a break, it's late." Adam settles himself against the couch a little more, puts his arm along the back. Kris pushes in against him, his cuddle junkie instincts having long since identified Adam as a dealer; Adam duly cuddles. "Um. Oh, here's one. I once decided I was going to be a lawyer."
Kris laughs, and the sound buzzes along Adam's side. "Seriously?"
"Oh, totally. I made my mom buy me a three piece suit and a tie. I was... gosh, eight? Nine?"
"There have got to be pictures."
"Not that you'll ever see 'em," Adam laughs, and jostles Kris with his arm. "So? My turn now. The devastating secrets of the American Idol."
Kris leans back, looks up into Adam's eyes with a smile that's a little too serious for him. "Okay. But you'll freak out."
Adam brightens, grinning at him. "Ooh, scandal! Did you kill a man in Reno just to watch him die?"
Kris snorts, pulling his gangsta face. "That ain't no secret."
Muffling his giggles against his arm, Adam tries to get it under control so he won't wake up the bus. It's an hour to the hotel; he'd rather not spend that time getting glared at by a cranky Mike Sarver. Kris is rubbing Adam's belly in an attempt to hush him, and that's distracting enough that Adam is able to shut himself up. Very gently, he takes Kris's wrist and urges it away; for the billionth time he wishes Kris weren't quite so comfortable with his sexuality. Lord protect us from hot straight boys, they know not what they do. Adam squeezes Kris around the shoulders, just to show there are no hard feelings. "Confess your sins, my son."
"Protestants don't confess."
"And Jews don't take confession. Don't pussy out, come on, tell me."
Kris's voice takes on that strangely serious note again. "Are you sure you want to know?"
Adam can almost feel the way the world slows down, in tempo with the words. Kris isn't joking this time; his body has stilled in the crook of Adam's arm. He rubs Kris's shoulder. "Hit me."
Tilting his head back, Kris looks Adam in the eyes. He looks strange, scared but kind of resigned. "I'm not who you think I am."
Well, of course not. There's no way anybody's that good and nice and kind without some kind of dark side. "Doesn't matter," Adam tells him, rubbing his shoulder. "I know what I need to know, and you're still my friend. And you don't have to tell me whatever it is until you're ready."
Kris smiles, sad but hopeful. Adam wonders if Kris told this secret to someone before and they couldn't deal. If maybe they left him because of it. If maybe they should be repeatedly punched in the face by a big theatre queen with heavy silver rings. Kris folds his arms over his chest, pushing a little closer into Adam's arm. "Promise?"
"I promise," Adam says, supremely confident.
So Kris tells him.
~
It went like this: he came down from a mountain in Morocco, and he had green eyes. When he checked his driver's license, he turned them back to brown. On the mountaintop, a holy man lay rotting; the grass and trees around the hut were brown and dead. It kept on raining.
He took his wasted body back to Arkansas and nursed it back to health, smiled at his parents and married his girl, and he had a good life.
And then Daniel decided they were going to try out for American Idol.
~
"It's totally fine," Adam babbles, pushing his door open. They just got in, Matt and Mike joking around about how much they were looking forward to real beds instead of the bus, and Adam had to keep it together all the way from the bus to the concierge to the fucking elevator.
Kris walks in after him, calm as a mountain lake, hands in his pockets. Just like he always is. "You're sure? I mean, I'd understand if, you know."
Adam's already at the mini-bar, pulling out a handful of vodka bottles. "It's completely okay," he says, hoping his voice stays steady. Hoping he doesn't throw up. He unscrews the caps one after the other and drops them, ignoring them as they ping away across the counter. "I just. I need a drink. You've probably had worse reactions," he laughs, and winces to hear the hysterical edge on it.
"Lots worse," Kris agrees pleasantly.
Adam fits the bottles between his fingers two at a time and pours into a big heavy glass that isn't nearly big enough. He downs it, feels it burn going down, then coming right back up to the back of his throat. Only years of practice keeps the liquor down where it can do some good, can kill some of the thoughts in his head.
His fucking knees are trembling.
He turns his head so it looks like he's looking over his shoulder at Kris; really, he's looking at the carpet. "Do you think I could... get some time alone? I just need to... drink some more."
Kris stands up and takes one step toward Adam, and it's like every tiny little movement is coming through a fucking megaphone. Adam's head is pounding. "I thought," Kris says, sounding young and even shy, yes, shy. "You said you were okay."
Adam closes his eyes, gives himself just that half second alone before he turns around and makes himself smile, makes himself walk forward and put his hands on Kris's deceptively narrow shoulders. There's such muscle under there, he's always felt - Adam feels the hysteria bubbling up again - felt so solid.
No. Adam is made of steel. Adam can do this. He looks Kris right in his warm, honey-brown eyes. "I am okay. I can handle it. It doesn't change who you are."
He's not okay. He can't handle this at all. It changes everything.
Kris smiles at him. He's still so cute, so charming, and when he puts his heavy hands on Adam's arms, he's no bigger or meaner or whatever. He's still the same old Kris, or he feels that way. "You can forget all about this," he says, in the tone of an offer. "I wouldn't mind if you did."
"No," Adam says immediately. He steps back, just in case. "No, I'm okay. I'm... I want to know."
Kris puts his hands up. "Okay. Whatever you want to do. You can change your mind any time."
Adam nods and turns back to the bar. With shaking fingers, heart pounding so hard against his ribs that it aches, he starts digging out more bottles.
"I'm just gonna go get some shut-eye," Kris says. "...Adam?"
"Yeah," Adam says, throwing a bright smile over his shoulder. "Yeah, sure. I'll see you in the morning."
Kris heads over to the door, moving so quietly. Too quietly. "I'll see you," he says, and he's gone.
Adam drinks everything in the mini-bar. It's cool, though - by the time he gets to the scotch, he can't taste it. He wakes up with his handler shaking him awake, face-first on the cool bathroom tile in a puddle of his own puke, and the worst part is that the handler doesn't say a fucking word.
~
It went like this: Kris, Matt and Scott all crammed together on the piano bench, picking out melodies. Danny walked up and sang a bit of gospel that didn't quite fit, but he sang it well and so the others shrugged affably and changed the tune.
Scott got up to hit the kitchen. Adam, kicked back on the couch with a magazine, rolled his eyes.
"This is a good one," Kris said, noodling around on the melody, changing it up with a faster beat. "Should be about a girl."
Danny's scowl wasn't visible on his face, but you could hear it in his voice. "God's not good enough?"
Matt started with hey, man, but Kris only smiled. "Nothing new about it. Here, listen." He picked out a song on the keys, something in a major chord, and when his voice lifted up, the words were about God sending sunshine and rain and wheat. Or something. Adam tapped his toes to it, because it was Kris singing. Danny nodded along, and then Kris picked it up and added a shimmy to his shoulders, and before anybody knew what was happening, he started belting out an old Ray Charles song. It was exactly the same song, there couldn't be any denying it, and Kris sang about how his woman gave him everything he could ever want - a woman, and not God.
Matt laughed at the same time as Adam, delighted. Danny crossed his arms over his chest, but he had to smile too, and Kris just sang on.
Adam relaxed on the couch, and flipped to the horoscopes.
~
He shuts the laptop and rubs his knuckles against his eyes to clear the blue glow from his retinas. It's maybe four in the morning; he's been studying for hours and he'll never sleep. He bought a subscription to the online Britannica, cross-referencing with Wikipedia as he goes, and he isn't finding anything new anymore.
He goes to the minibar and grabs two vodkas, pours them both out into a glass and takes it to the table where he sits and stares at it. Just like Kris, it looks simple and clean. A good life, he'd said in his plain-folks drawl. Just one good one, from birth to death, and when he was a kid in Conway, he hadn't even remembered who he really was.
Adam found nothing in the books about a game like this. There was no movie-style loophole to get back into Heaven, no part of the Talmud or Torah that fit. There was nothing in the New Testament or the Quran, from the overviews he'd skimmed. There was some stuff about fallen angels who tempt people away from Allah, plenty on how the devil lies and lies, and this whole codex of apocryphal Qabbalah stuff. Adam had checked the ancient mythology parts too, just to be sure, only usually when the Gods were fighting, the only thing humans had to do was shut up and get out of the way or get stomped on.
Adam rubs his hands over his face, vodka untouched on the table, head pounding like he's already drank a gallon of it. Whatever else, there's one pretty hard and fast rule, supported by dozens of religions all over the world: whatever Kris is doing, it's no good. Humanity's going to fucking regret it if he finishes. Someone has to stop him.
Someone.
Adam picks up the glass, swirls the vodka at the bottom for a second, and then kicks it back. Two seconds later, he's in the bathroom, swearing off all booze forever. Skin hot, throat burning, he wonders if God's tapped him for this. And what if he's supposed to turn into some kind of prophet now? Quit cursing, quit booze, quit partying, devote his life to God and live according to Halakha law, shit. He starts to panic as he imagines having this sick feeling whenever he's in bed with someone, like a guy someone, and how he'd rather live free for a week and then die horribly, he'd rather have his fucking eyes gouged out than not be able to have sex because of some ridiculous rule he'd never fucking agreed to anyway, who the fuck decided that it was some kind of sin...
Leaning his head against the cool porcelain, Adam breathes in and out, in and out. God has a reason for everything, that's what they always said. Adam's just got to get back to basics if he's going to figure out what the fuck it is that he's supposed to do, here.
Adam dropped out of Hebrew school, which, okay, later he has to remember to have a serious talk with God about how he chooses his emissaries, because next time it'd probably be good to have somebody who has the first fucking clue what he's doing. But he is a big fan of stories. He watches movies and he reads comic books, so he knows a little about how it's supposed to work: if you're a villain, and you go good for a while, they'll trust you. Maybe they'll let you back where you shouldn't be, and you can fuck things up from there. In fact, if Kevin Smith movies have taught him nothing else, it's that you can't just let the bad guys just go do their thing, or the world will explode. Maybe there's nothing in Wikipedia about it, but it's the only thing Adam can think of.
One good life. There's only one way to screw that up. Adam's guessing that offenses against humanity aren't really a big deal to someone like Kris, but to sin against God has to hold some significance, no matter how bad you are. There's a reason that so many people do it. And it can't be a tattoo or a bacon cheeseburger; it's gotta be a big one if it's gonna count.
Adam gets up off the bathroom floor and goes to his table. He opens his laptop, types Commandments into the search box, and starts to calm down.
~
It went like this: Adam made his entrance into the green room backstage in San Jose and found Kris watching the local news, sprawled out on the couch. He laughed. "Do you even believe those guys?"
Kris grinned. "I kinda want to go out and talk to them, you know?"
"Ugh, no way," Adam said, rolling his eyes. "Those guys, they just say the most offensive shit they can and wait for somebody to get mad. It's a con, that's all."
Mike was there, arms folded across his chest like the bear everybody always said he was. "It's not right, to use God's name like that. Just to get somebody mad at you."
Kris smiled at him, and Adam felt the same warm glow he always did when he caught Kris pitying people for not thinking at all. Kris caught Adam catching him, and they traded a much sharper grin.
Allison was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the table, doing her nails like they didn't have somebody to do that for them. "I don't care, man. I'd go pop one of 'em right now if we didn't have a fucking show to do." She flipped off the TV, her black fingernail sparkling.
Adam squinted at her. "Is that my nail polish?"
"...No."
Danny, musing aloud, interrupted. "But aren't you mad? Have you seen their posters? Some people really believe that, even if they don't."
Adam shrugged. "I don't care. I believe what I believe, and I'm not gonna change their minds. So it's kind of live and let live, you know? They can believe whatever they want, and so can I. And if that's, like, part Jewish and part ancient Egypt and part San Diego hippie, nobody's gonna tell me I can't, y'know?"
"It's still not right," Mike said, gesturing at the idiots on TV. "They shouldn't be allowed."
Kris shook his head. "What're you gonna do, man? Are you gonna make the rules about what people can and can't believe?"
"I never said that," Mike scoffed.
It never ceased to amaze Adam, the openness and understanding that came out of a fucking worship leader from Arkansas. He was like a walking, talking reminder from God, directly to Adam, that openness and understanding had to go both ways. He went and sat down next to Kris, bumped his shoulder. Kris bumped back, gave him this big, gorgeous smile, and Adam forgot about the protesters entirely.
~
It takes time to get himself warmed up to the idea. And not even because of what Kris is; that part is fucking surreal enough that it barely factors in. No, the trouble is that Adam can't figure out how the fuck he's supposed to approach it.
Exactly one Commandment seemed applicable to Kris, and it's the one that makes Adam's hackles rise most. Of course it's guilt; shit, he'd thought enough about it before, when Kris was just a really handsy southern boy with an ass you could bounce quarters off. And Adam really likes Katy. But of course, she doesn't have any idea, and this time it's for the good of humanity, so whatever.
No, the problem isn't that. It's that Adam isn't Helen of fucking Troy. He can't just put it out there and see if Kris is interested, because he isn't. Gay and straight never really had any meaning for Kris - Adam pauses for a second to think how much sense that makes now - but he wants to live his good life. He'll see the sin coming. He's kind of a fucking expert.
In the end, Adam's left with only one real option. Kris must have confided in him for a reason, he must have done it because he wanted something. Kris has never struck Adam as lonely, not even before, but he always took the view of an outsider looking in at the world. That too makes sense, in retrospect. It's one of the reasons the two of them always got along so well, and it was nice to have someone to share that with.
Adam's going to have to bank on the hope that it was nice for Kris, too.
He's been avoiding contact with Kris for the last week. People haven't noticed yet, but Kris has - Adam can feel the faint hum of disappointment whenever he slips out of a room just after Kris's entrance, or reaches forward just as Kris leans back. So this time, when the crowd is roaring and the ten of them are on stage, Adam turns to Kris and shouts Don't Stop Believing at the top of his lungs as he lowers himself down on one knee.
The look on Kris's face is indescribable. There's surprise, of course, but there's radiant joy, too. Adam feels a little dizzy, looking up at him; Kris is so happy that the light is starting to break around him like it did before, when Adam said prove it and Kris had. It had felt like his head was coming apart, his eyes on fire, all sound was deafening, and now it's creeping in at the edges of his senses again and he's on stage in front of ten thousand people, and isn't that a biblical number or something, people should fucking warn you...
He stands up and faces the crowd, shaking it off, but he can feel the warmth in the air around him, curling around his shoulders and making his knees shake and his heart pound.
There's supposed to be a fucking angel in that skin.
They close out the set and crowd down into the backstage labyrinth with the others. Adam plants his teeth in his bottom lip, forces himself to take Kris by the hand and pull him aside. Kris goes along easily, willingly, and Adam feels almost giddy with it. It's going to work, he's sure; it's just the two of them, it's just like before. He can do this.
"I'm glad you did that," Kris says, when they're hidden between stages and under the deafening noise. He takes Adam's hand and holds it, like a child, and his smile is bright and brilliant even in the dark. "I'm glad we're still friends."
"Of course we are," Adam says, feeling absolutely stupid now that he's in the moment. He knows what he means to say, but it's coming out obvious and clunky. "I like you. You're... you've always been..."
"It's cool, I get it," Kris says, and Adam could swear there's actual light around him. He gestures at himself it a bit sheepishly. "People get overwhelmed when they can see it. I hope you get used to it with time, but I don't know, I mean, nobody..."
Adam knows exactly what to say, can calculate it perfectly. Then he grips Kris's hand tighter and can actually feel the sympathy rising up in him. "Nobody who could see you ever stuck around long enough for you to know."
The crack in that glow is almost visible. Kris's smile turns bittersweet, and the world turns blue and cool around him. "Yeah."
"I'm here," Adam tells him firmly. "I'm not going anywhere."
Kris steps in, wraps his arms around Adam's waist and cuddles close like he always did. It's terrifying now to hug back, to let his hand drift up into Kris's hair and hold him. Adam's heart is pounding under Kris's cheek; he's sure Kris will hear it and call him on it and know. He's no fucking good at this; who the hell would ever be good at this?
But Kris just holds on and sighs against Adam's shoulder, unmoving.
He's never going to get a better chance. He pulls back a bit, watches the disappointment reflect on the walls as Kris starts to let go. Adam wills his fingers not to shake as he brings them around, tips Kris's chin up and leans in to kiss him.
It's like touching his mouth to electrified molasses. His entire body feels too hot, he smells char and tastes apples. Everything slows down as his eyes start to close, as he starts to forget.
And then Kris pulls away.
Drenched with cold air, Adam is shocked and shivering. Kris touches his cheek. "I can't," he says softly. "I'd like to. But I... I shouldn't."
Blinking at him, Adam's at a loss for words.
Kris only smiles. "I have to go call my wife," he says, and turns to walk away.
Adam stares after him, and can't say a word.
That kiss was devastating. That's a fucking angel that had his mouth on Adam's, it felt different all the way to the marrow of Adam's bones, and now that he's leaving, it seems like all the air is gone. But Kris was interested. Adam knows that, he felt it. He was fucking chosen for this because he can feel with his hands and his heart when a kiss is supposed to be more, and that kiss should have been way, way more.
Freezing, shaking in his boots in a backstage hole, Adam tells himself that he'll just have to try again.
~
It went like this: Adam stopped himself just short of walking into the green room when he saw who was inside. He couldn't keep a smile off his face when he saw them together; they were like matching dolls that should come with a little house and kids and a catcher's mitt and a barbeque. He started to sneak away, wanting to give them their privacy.
"Adam," Katy called. "Is that you?"
He stopped, turned and walked back into the room, a smile already on his face. "Busted."
Katy beamed at him. "You weren't gonna say hi? Do I smell? I washed my hair and everything."
Adam walked through the door already laughing, and found a pair of brightly silly smiles waiting for him. They were sitting on a couch, Kris on one end with Katy's bare feet in his lap. Adam leaned down to kiss Katy's temple, and gave her a one-armed hug that made her blush. "You're a field of roses, honey. How're you doing?"
"Fine," she said, wiggling her toes. Kris rubbed at them a little, and Katy sighed. "I'm asserting my conjugal rights."
Adam looked at her sideways. "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Kris grinned and patted Katy's ankle. "Oh, these are the rights she asserts. The other ones she kind of more demands?"
Katy dug her toes sharply into Kris's side as Adam blushed. The room filled with giggling until Katy pulled over to one side of the couch. "I'll show you demanding later," she promised with a squint to her eye.
Adam pressed a hand to his chest, still smiling. "I can't decide which one of you is Laurel and which one is Hardy."
Kris looked over at her with the kind of sweet care you see on postcards, on TV. "She's Abbott, I'm Costello."
Katy had already closed her eyes and leaned back against the arm of the couch. She wiggled her toes in her husband's lap. "Get cracking, kid. Love, honor and obey." Kris dug his thumb into her instep, and Adam watched Katy sneak a warm, helplessly happy look of love under her eyelashes.
Matching outfits, Adam thought. They should definitely have come with matching outfits. Carefully, he memorized the happy picture and added it to the mental list of reasons he should never try to turn his little crush into anything else.
~
It's a hotel night when Adam decides to try again. It's been a week and a half since the kiss, and things between them have been significantly less horrifying. Adam catches glimpses of the truth now and then, when Kris smiles at him behind people's backs and the world starts to melt around the edges. But mostly, the temptation to pretend that none of it ever happened is overwhelming.
He doesn't want to do anything bad. He doesn't want to hurt Katy, and when he's doing an especially good job of denial, he doesn't want to hurt Kris either. He wants his smart, funny, human friend to be happy and have a good life and be something as simple and normal as the American Idol. (Idol. Hilarious.) Adam just wants to make music. He wants to have some vague, comfortable idea of what God is and what He might want, and not think about it most of the time. He wants the ideas to stop scratching at the back of his mind; he wants to not feel the weight of God's eyes on him all the time, every fucking minute. There's too much pressure, and he wants to go back to when he didn't have to figure out the grand divine plan. He wants his new tattoo to stop fucking itching. He wants it all to go away.
But Kris looks at him sometimes. Even before the big revelation, he used to look, and Adam used to think it was cute in a curious straight boy kind of way. But now it's not just looking, now Adam knows that Kris has all the necessary experience to know what he's asking. Now, he's supposed to want it too.
There's a plan at work, Adam's sure, and he's a part of it. As they all hoist their bags onto their shoulders and stumble off the bus, through the lobby, Kris is right at his side as if by accident. When the handler comes to pass out the key cards, Adam's room and Kris's are side by side.
The world is turning under their feet, and the stars aligning over their heads.
Upstairs, Adam drops his stuff on the hotel bed and goes into the bathroom to stare at his reflection. He doesn't recognize his own face; it looks put together wrong. He runs the sink and scrubs off all his makeup, and it doesn't help.
The knock on his door is hardly unexpected; Kris often needs to wind down after a long day. Adam is stifling a laugh when he opens the door.
"What?" Kris asks, standing there patiently.
Adam waves him inside. "I was just thinking," he says, letting Kris pass him, closing the door. "It was stupid."
Kris smiles, the world behind him immediately wavering like a desert highway at noon. "Tell me anyway. I like stupid sometimes."
It's an effort to keep looking at him, but Adam does it anyway and feels his body starting to stir. He can feel the pull of fate on him, and knowing what he's planning to do is transmuting the fear and nerves into desire. His stomach's full of knots, but his cock knows what to do. Adam licks his lips. "I was just thinking how you always need to chill out after a show, or when we get in like this. And... I just wondered if you were always like that. Did you have to go bounce on your toes after you cracked open Eden?"
Kris looks so startled that Adam's throat closes on a high-pitched giggle. The thought is too huge, he sounds insane. And then Kris starts laughing too, in his warm and beautiful way, and the room is filled with a satiny heat that has Adam responding immediately. He smiles at Kris, feeling honest affection for him in the middle of everything. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course," Kris says, smiling back at him. Everything's okay. Everything's great.
Adam lowers his voice, even though they're alone. "How come you don't tell people who you are? I mean, these days there have to be people who'd think it was cool."
Looking away, Kris's blush shows on his cheeks. "Well, sure. But not everybody can handle a celestial being out of their human guise? I don't know if that makes sense, but like... most humans can't physically deal with it, they see it and they die." Kris looks up at him again, and his eyes are shifting color as Adam watches. "You have to be someone special... like you, Adam."
He cups his hand to Kris's face without thinking. He's meant for this. It's part of the plan.
This time, when Adam kisses him, Kris presses close instantly. It's overwhelming; Adam's head spins, his body's on fire. The skin is hot against his fingers and all the breath is leaving his body. He pulls away and drags at the air with his lungs. "Kris."
"Sorry," Kris pants, his hands burning against Adam's biceps, eyes closed. The smell of smoke is in the air. "That's my fault, I. I can. One second." It ticks by, and the heat in the air starts to fade. He pulls back and the black material of Adam's shirt sticks to his palms. Kris smiles, crooked and abashed. "I wasn't expecting that."
Adam takes a step toward him, feeling drunk though he hasn't touched a drop. Kris's eyes are black in the shadows thrown by the bedside lamp, and Adam fixates on them. "Can you keep that under control?"
"Yeah," Kris nods, reaching out. He touches Adam's chest, tentative and soft, and it doesn't burn.
Adam grabs him by the wrist and pulls him forward. "Stay here," Adam says, fitting his mouth to Kris's neck. He smells feathers there, incense and cotton. "Stay with me. Fuck, I want you."
Kris shivers in his arms, and it's like Adam can feel the body under his hands become fragile.
"I want you," he repeats, this time making sure the words have the real meaning behind them, not just sex. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."
Fists curl at the small of Adam's back, stretching his shirt taut. Kris's breath is hot against his collarbone, and he mumbles something unintelligible, some breath of words against Adam's shirt.
"What's that?" Adam pulls back, traces his thumb over Kris's cheek.
He looks up and his eyes are a wide, bright green, the color of old glass in the summer sun. His beautiful features are even more so, gold shining under his skin. He presses against Adam, belly to belly and thigh to thigh, and it's so desperately hot that Adam can hardly stand. Kris is everything, drowning him, the smell of his skin and the halo burning out Adam's retinas; it's too much to take.
"Say my name," Kris breathes, leaning up on his toes to press his mouth against Adam's jaw.
Adam swallows hard, closes his eyes and watches the fading impression of Kris glow against the darkness. He considers for a second if he can pretend not to know what Kris wants, if he can get out of it. But that's now how he's going to win this. He presses his lips tight together, tilts his head back and threads his fingers through Kris's hair. "Which one?"
Kris hesitates, then edges his fingers under Adam's shirt; a human temperature this time. "Do you know what the Muslims call me?"
All the research he did was good for something. Adam leans closer, lowers his voice. "Shaitan."
The hard, compact body against his shudders, head to toe. Kris's lips smudge against his skin, wet and hot, and he pushes his hands under Adam's shirt. "That's the closest. To the real one, I mean."
Adam knows this part, he knows it. As gently as he can, he pushes Kris back and turns them around, walks them to the bed. Kris won't let go, keeps pushing closer, and by the time he thumps down onto the mattress, he takes Adam's shirt with him. Adam doesn't give a damn; he drops to his knees by the bedside and opens Kris's belt. "Tell me," he says, looking up and seeing how the light makes Kris's features perfect. How he hid it all this time. "Tell me what it really is, so I can say it."
Kris spreads his thighs and touches Adam's cheek, brushes the hair out of his eyes. His smile is full of love and suffering, in equal measure. "Why do you always have to know, huh? You always get me in trouble, but I can never tell you no."
The implication there - that they've done this before, and Adam just doesn't remember - is too terrifying to contemplate. Adam presses his face against Kris's thigh and bites at him through the material, easing his zipper open and pushing his hand inside. The silky curve of Kris's erection fits into his hand perfectly. "Just tell me."
"Oh." Kris's eyes have closed, his mouth is open and soft. He leans back on his hands, hips lifting ever so slightly into the touch. "Oh, Adam, I."
He ducks to the side and presses a kiss to Kris's belly, strokes his hand along the thick length. He has to shift a little to ease the pressure in his jeans; Kris is so fucking gorgeous like this, like Adam always knew he would be. "Tell me," he breathes against the skin. "Please."
"Shh." Kris shudders, his fingers edging tentatively into Adam's hair. And then he says a word that sounds like Shaitan but isn't, a word that ends in the name of God like the names of the angels. Adam can't speak more than a word or two of Hebrew, but this word means something important and he knows it like he knows his own name, like he knew he was gay, pure instinct. This name is the dawn of time, God's first thoughts creating the sun and the stars and the earth, the first morning in the universe and the first angel of God to behold these wonders with inexpressible joy. The name of the son of morning.
Adam presses his mouth to Kris's flesh and repeats this word, and Kris shivers with force enough to shake the air around them. Somewhere far away there is a deep, cracking rumble - thunder, maybe, or an earthquake. Adam opens over him, takes him inside, and Kris's perfect voice starts to scratch.
~
It went like this: Adam knew what Kris was and he knew what he was going to do, and maybe he talked to his mother, maybe he talked with his publicist on the phone. It was kind of a haze and maybe he didn't care, maybe it didn't matter what he did or what happened to him because things would go on without him, the world could keep living. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't a garden, but it was good enough and he lived in it and he loved it so he'd save it and die, he was going to die when Kris realized, oh God, could he be saved? If he was chosen, didn't that mean he would be saved? And if he was saved, would he still be himself and has he always been himself or was this ordained from the start? What if all his hippie astrology bullshit has always been bullshit and it was always just like this, it isn't fair, not to anybody, and when he ordered his coffee at Starbucks and someone pushed in front of him in line it made him so fucking crazy, because didn't they know what he was going to do for them? Didn't they realize who he was, who he had to be? And so they called him a fucking diva but really it's just polite, what the fuck kind of person tries to butt in front of the saviour of the human race at the fucking coffee line, okay? Or in front of anybody! It's motherfucking rude, and when his handler and his bodyguard looked at him like he was coked out of his tree he just rolled his eyes because they could think that if they wanted to but he wasn't high, he wasn't drunk, he wasn't crazy, and if maybe sometimes he would sit in his bathroom at three in the morning, if he couldn't sleep, if he hadn't bothered to turn on the light and he would just sit in the bathtub and stare at the light of the moon on the tile, that didn't mean he was crazy because anybody would.
He was only human.
~
Adam lies in bed and watches steam curl away from Kris's body and up to the ceiling. His job is done, a major sin staining the life of Kris Allen. A broken Commandment, and the world is safe. "So tell me," he smiles, his body boneless and replete. "What was the big plan?"
Kris rolls his head to the side on the pillow and lifts a quizzical eyebrow. He's still sheened in sweat, his shoulders and chest lightening from red to pink.
Adam waves a vague hand. "You know. One good life, from birth to death. What was it?"
"Oh," Kris says distantly. "That. I don't really know, I was just... waiting. Got bored killing time and decided it'd be a nice experiment. It's not important now."
Adam feels his body go cold, feels ice forming up around his heart. He can't breathe. "...What?"
Kris looks at him again, concerned.
"For what?" Adam manages to say. "Waiting for what?"
The smile is beautiful, Kris's sweet self shining underneath. Adam sees a history of those smiles in his mind, back through the tour and the press junkets and the show itself, a thousand smiles that always seemed familiar. Kris reaches out and threads his fingers through Adam's, squeezes them warmly. "For you, of course. Adam, son of Enoch the Metatron, Keeper of Secrets, Scribe of the Heavens, who was assumed unto Heaven and whose line is the line of man." The smile quirks up, sharper. "I wasn't sure it was you, and then you wouldn't shut up about your rising sign."
Adam stares at him. "But. I'm just."
Kris blushes, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. "You're special. I've been waiting for you for a long time, just... hoping we could be friends." He shrugs one shoulder, averts his eyes to hide what Adam already knows is there - loneliness that has too much history to measure. The word eons is confining and small.
Adam sits up. He isn't breathing, but he knows he can still stand, walk into the bathroom and turn on the light. He can still stare at his naked body in the mirror and catalogue the many flaws and quirks that make it up, the ones he knows by heart. A cluster of freckles that melt into each other, so it's more of a birthmark if you're not looking closely. When they were young, his little brother used to say it was a scar where his alien leaders had implanted him with a need for glitter.
"It doesn't mean you're different," Kris offers from the doorway.
Adam turns and looks at him, at the jeans hastily drawn on for modesty and the sex-tousled hair, at the pink on his cheeks and the shy, hesitant way he touches the door frame. He wishes he could say something, anything, which would make sense. But if he opens his mouth, what would come out... he doesn't even know. Maybe Hebrew. Maybe Kris is already speaking Hebrew.
"Aramaic," Kris says, and though Adam puts the last sentence under grindingly bright scrutiny, he can't understand how any of it works. If it's real.
"I don't," he says, looking at Kris and shaking his head. He would say something else, finish the sentence, but what language would he be speaking? He starts to laugh and then can't stop; he falls to the floor and wedges himself into the space between the toilet and the bathtub and he can't stop fucking laughing. Tears are running down his face and he can't close his mouth and things are fading away, becoming distant. It's all mattering less. He's going somewhere else.
Kris comes to kneel beside him. The touch to his face pulls him back, and he looks up into Kris's sad green eyes.
"I used to hate you," Kris says softly. "I didn't understand how fragile you are, that you couldn't hear or see. That you were just trying to do what you thought was right. But I could never hate you now, Adam. Close your eyes, all right? Just go to sleep. And when you wake up, everything will be all right again. I promise."
Adam nods, shaking and cold, and closes his eyes. Kris's mouth touches his, a sweet and soft kiss, and suddenly he is warm again, and so very tired.
~
It went like this: Top 36 group number rehearsal, sweating their asses off in a tiny studio and swilling water. It was hard enough to just sound decent on national fucking television without also trying to match your voice to the voices of eleven strangers, and this was the logic that Hot Guy had used when he sat down next to Adam and started talking.
"I never expected to get this far," the guy was saying. "I just came out to support my brother, and then bam. Here I am."
Adam nods, and watches the guy in the hat (Hat Guy) trying to be a little less acoustic and a little more like the girl with pink hair (Allison). "I hear you, man. It's all still kinda surreal. But you gotta have confidence."
Hot Guy laughs softly. "Yeah, I guess you don't have any problem with that." Adam shoots him a look - is he calling Adam arrogant? But the guy ducks his head adorably, and blushes. "I just mean you seem to know what you're doing."
Adam laughs easily, wanting to let him off the hook. "It's all a clever charade, honey, believe me. I'm freaking out as much as anybody. I just try not to show it on camera. What's your name again?"
"Kris," he says, with a smile. It has a shade of wickedness on it, that smile, and Adam's sure nobody would catch it if they weren't looking for it. He doesn't know why he saw it just now.
"Tell me what you want, Kris. Five years from now, where are you gonna be?"
There's a moment of silence as Kris blinks at him. "I'm not sure. Probably Arkansas."
Adam shakes his head. "That's no way to think, man. You gotta visualize where you're gonna be, and believe you're going to be there, you know? You gotta have a goal, or you'll never get there." Kris nods, but Adam can tell he doesn't get it. "Take me, for instance," he says. "I don't know if I'm gonna win this thing. Maybe not. But I'll get exposure out of it, if I can get far enough, and that'll be enough to land me gigs. Five years? I'll be touring with my first album by then. Maybe sooner if I get far enough."
Kris looks sideways at him, speculative. "And people are just gonna want to hear you?"
Adam shrugs and smiles at him. "I hope so. Man, I wanna be a rock star. Don't you?"
~
Los Angeles, 2010
Adam's nervous, but it's giving him energy. His fingertips crackle with it, his feet won't stay still.
"Quit fucking fidgeting," says Danielle from the stool beside him. She's got one of the eyeshadows and is experimenting around the corners of her eyes.
The makeup artist du jour (Stephan) scowls at Adam and pokes a fingertip under his chin to keep him steady. "Thank you," Stephan says to Danielle, not looking away from Adam's face.
Adam makes a concerted effort to sit still for the next twenty seconds, and then he has to look, has to fuck with it. Stephan throws up his hands in defeat and wanders away, and Danielle calls Adam a diva, and it's almost normal enough to get the nerves down to manageable levels. When he's done up enough, he turns to her. "This okay?"
"You look like a hooker," she says, not bothering to even glance at him.
He sighs. "Where's Alisan? Where are the boys?"
Danielle finally looks over, and immediately begins smudging with her pinky finger. "Brad and Ferras are vetoing your groupies. Cassidy's schmoozing in VIP and I think Ali is still in costuming."
"She can't keep anything," Adam says, suddenly scared for a whole other reason.
"Have Sam search her on the way out," Danielle smiles. "Okay. You're beautiful and I just heard them calling ten minutes."
The door pops open and an assistant pokes his head in. "Adam, ten minutes. They need you up front."
He and Danielle both laugh, and then crush together in a hug. "I love you," Adam says.
"Break a leg," Danielle tells him seriously.
Adam's out the door and halfway to his mark before he remembers to ask about Kris, but Danielle's too far away. "Fuck," he mutters, and the assistant next to him ignores that and keeps reviewing, like Adam wasn't in rehearsal every day for the last week. "I'm good," he says, and waves said assistant off.
At his mark, everyone's ready. He can see Monte across from him in the wings, and he pastes a bright smile onto his face and waves. Monte flips him off, the surly bastard, and Adam's smile turns genuine.
First night. First show. Tour kickoff. There's near fifty thousand people out there; the fucking thing sold out. Adam's heart is aching like he just drank a pot of coffee, and all he wants is to get it started already. His palms are sweating. His makeup's going to run. His stomach has Mothra in it.
"Hey," says a warm voice behind him, and he whips around to see Kris coming up.
Adam wraps his arms around Kris's compact frame and squeezes hard. He's so solid, just like always, the anchor in Adam's crazy fucking ride. "Hey yourself. Didn't want to go on without seeing you."
Kris holds him at arm's length and grins at him, so huge. "I'm so proud of you, man. You're gonna kill this thing."
"Oh, God, I fucking hope so." Adam glances out at the enormous milling crowd, the house lights still up. He still can't believe they booked this fucking stadium. He's got appeal, but not this much appeal, not the last time he checked. "That's a lot of people."
"There were more watching us on Idol," Kris shrugs. "This is chump change compared to that. It's not like Brian May's out there or something."
Adam nods, feeling his stomach settle a bit. He brings his eyes back where things are safe, back to Kris. "Where are you gonna be? VIP?"
"Maybe in a bit. I want to be up front for some of it, though." Kris smiles so wide, so bright, his glorious green eyes lit by reflections from the stage. Adam feels a surge of love for him, the only one who understands what it's like to be in a spotlight exactly like this.
He squeezes Kris again, tight. "Try not to get too much glitter on you."
Kris's voice is mashed against Adam's shirt. "In the front row at your show? Doesn't seem possible." The assistants come around, their panicked voices calling five minutes, five minutes, we're on in five, people! "I should go," Kris says. "I'll be right up there."
"Better be," Adam says. "Or I'm calling you out."
"You would," Kris laughs, and his face is so familiar.
Every now and then, Adam will get this creepy crawly sense of deja vu, even though it's crazy because he used to wake up to this face every morning in the mansion. It's like he should remember something about Kris, something important, but it's always just out of reach. Adam shrugs it off and kisses the top of Kris's head. "Love you."
The look he gets in return, for some reason, seems a little bit sad. "Love you too," Kris says, and then he's gone into the pits of the stage, weaving between equipment and out of sight.
The minutes tick past, the show grinds into being, and when the explosions start, Adam marches up on stage to the beat. Thousands of voices shriek together, a deafening wave of sound, and Adam lifts both hands to the sky and throws horns.
~
THE DEVIL, had he fidelity,
Would be the finest friend
Because he has ability,
But Devils cannot mend.
Perfidy is the virtue
That would he but resign,
The Devil, so amended,
Were durably divine.
Emily Dickinson
