[AI] Next Time (Won't You Sing With Me?) {K through M}
Title: Next Time (Won't You Sing With Me?) {K through M}
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Kris, Kris/Katy, Kradison friendship
Wordcount: ~4000
Warning: Het (I know, right?) but not written very explicitly.
Disclaimer: Everyone mentioned belongs only to themselves, and none of this ever happened. Except the bits they showed on TV.
Summary/Notes: Original author's note, and first nine letters, are here.
So, um, from J to K was a pretty big jump in length (~500 words to ~1000 words) and if I'd continued on that track I'd be doing full fics for each of the letters in no time. And while that will happen eventually (X is the first in a trio of epilogue fics), I didn't quite want to do it YET. So you get three, all of them ~1000 to ~2000 words, and the next few will probably hover around that length. At this point I've given up pretty much on the "don't use the prompt word in the fic" thing. Also the prompts of some of these might seem a little strange (L has more Katy in it than K does) but I'm actually doing that on purpose - using it for the word that's L makes it have an entirely different feel than if I'd used the same scene for K. So let me know how that worked!
K is for Katy.
He's been looking forward to this home visit for a long time - it feels like forever, really. The last week has been hell - he knew he was going home either way, whether as loser or hero, and he'd kept Adam up late night after night, talking about how much he missed his wife, his home, his brother, his friends. Adam had reciprocated - telling Kris about the parties he's missed, the people. He mentions Brad especially and a boy named Drake, his eyes going hot and the corner of his mouth turning up, and Kris generally excuses himself to sleep pretty soon after that. He feels...strange, when Adam talks about the entertainer's life he left. Almost sorrowful. It feels to him that the friends he's made are friends of his mask, and the lovers love him for his perfect face. He wonders how many of them knew Adam when he was the chubby ginger boy getting picked on, how many of them even knew that he'd ever been anything but a proud and strutting raven clad in stars.
He isn't sure that they'd even care. He's less sure why he does. Adam's happy, that's clear - happy with how far he's gotten in the competition (obviously), happy to go home and see his family, revisit his old life. But there's a sorrow that lingers in the backs of his eyes that mirrors something Kris can taste in his throat.
On the last day in the Idol Mansion before they fly home Kris sits on his bed, guitar in his lap but not really playing, Bible on his knee but not really praying. He's watching Adam as he repaints his nails, his large hands steady and delicate, bottle of polish balanced on the bed beside him. He's singing under his breath, something high and haunting that Kris couldn't see himself attempting in a million years, and he gets caught in it, a little carried away on its dream.
Adam finished his left hand and shakes it, lips pursing a little as he blows lightly to dry the polish faster. He notices Kris' eyes on him and smirks, raising an eyebrow. "See something you like?" He teases gently, and Kris rolls his eyes.
Suddenly he slides off the bed, his guitar and Bible bouncing, and scoots up next to Adam. "Do me." He says, holding out his right hand.
Adam's eyebrow inches higher, and he bites his lips to keep from laughing. Kris snickers first, and then they're both cracking up hard, curled into one another, the bed bouncing with their laughter. "Oh my Ra," Adam gasps, "If the rooms are bugged you know that's going on air."
Kris shrugs, still shaking with giggles. "I don't think they are. Isn't that, like, a privacy violation? And anyway, I don't care." He straightens to find Adam's face close to his own, his lips twisted in the ends of a laugh. His eyes are a warm sort of blue, his pupils wide, and Kris slides easily from laughter to something more precious. "I was serious, you know." He says, voice soft, and he feels like he's standing on the edge of a knife but he doesn't know whether to step forward or back, to fall or to fly. Finally he raises his hand, wiggling his fingers. He drops his eyes to examine his nails. "Just the thumb, I think. Don't want to freak Katy out too much."
There's something off about Adam's cheerful "Of course," but Kris can't see his face as he turns, too sudden, to grab the polish. He takes Kris' hand and holds it still, fingers warm and gentle, and maybe he's still got laughter trapped inside because his hands are shaking, much different than how steady they were while Kris watched him before. But he's Adam Lambert and Kris doesn't think he's ever done a botched nail polish job in his life. His eyes are strangely intent on Kris' fingers and Kris grins at the the little flicker of tongue at the corner of his mouth that mean's he's concentrating. Or, sometimes, nervous, but there's no reason for him to be nervous, now, so it must be concentrating.
When Adam's done he twists his thumb hand here and there, nodding to himself. "Might I ask why?" He says, finally meeting Kris' eyes again, "Starting to embrace your inner emo boy, one finger at a time?"
Kris smiles but doesn't laugh, shy. He thinks about the answer, and he realizes that the lingering bitterness in his throat is at the thought of leaving Adam, of not living in the same room with him, even for a short time, and he wants...he wants to get rid of the sadness in Adam's eyes and he can't take Adam with him to Arkansas but maybe this is the next best thing. He raises his eyes to Adam's, still so close, and says, "I just thought...I'd like to carry a piece of you home with me."
Adam drops his hand like it burned him and explodes upward, face pained. "Jesus fucking Christ, Kris!" He stalks to the window. "Do you even know what you're - you - " He seems to get stuck without words entirely, making little strangled noises, slamming an arm against the wall and leaning on it, his eyes on the street below. "Jesus fucking Christ." He mutters again, softer this time.
Kris stares at him, startled and worried. "Adam?" He stands, and reseats himself on his own bed, a little lost, a little more hurt. "Uh, I just thought...all those stupid rumors about how we couldn't possibly be friends, because we're too different, because you're gay and I'm Christian and married and whatever other bullshit reasons they've thrown at us, I thought this could...settle them, you know? Besides," He takes a deep breath. "I will miss you."
Adam runs a hand through his hair, still not looking at Kris, and sighs a long sigh. Kris bites his lip. "But if you don't - I mean, I can take it off - "
Adam turns, mask in place, smiling a little sadly. "No, no, it's a good idea." He chuckles and sits back down on his bed, going to repaint his other hand. "I like it, actually. Show the idiots that friendship is blind, right?"
Kris goes back to his guitar, liking the way his thumbnail looks when he strums a chord, but he keeps an eye on Adam, contemplating. What the fuck had just happened? Adam had been, well, Adam, open and warm and pretty much Kris' favorite person in the world, and then, well. He'd gotten angry, angry at Kris for really the first time, and now he was all oyster-shell again and it hurt because it had been a gesture half for Adam, half to make him happy, and it seemed to do just the opposite.
Adam seems to go back to normal fast, though, finishing his right hand except for his right thumbnail. He even goes so far as to get out the polish remover, carefully wiping away the last remains of the old polish from his thumb. "There." He says, grinning a real grin, if a bit wistful, at Kris. "If you can carry a piece of me, I can carry a piece of you."
Kris wants to hug him, then, press himself into his chest until he can feel his heart beating, wants to say goodbye with words his lips don't even know the shape of. But his phone rings in his pocket and Katy's silly face, eyes crossed and lips pursed, showed on his ID. So he settles for a smile not nearly big enough and answers it.
It's only after he hears the voice of his wife in his ear that he thinks, favorite person in the world that I'm not married to. He chuckles at something Katy says. Obviously.
L is for Loss.
He arrives home in a shower of shouts and cheers, a tumbling, laughing, riotous circus of color and noise. Katy meets him at the airport, standing out from the crowd with his family in her green summer dress and her windblown blonde hair, a gorgeous doll spun of memory and love and sunlight and Kris thinks, home.
There are cameras everywhere, of course. He barely notices them anymore, when he's in public, just shadows that murmur instructions to each other through headsets permanently glued to their ears. She's a little more skittish, smiling around her like she doesn't mean it, until Kris folds her into an embrace and they melt together like they're meant to be.
She pulls away quickly, pressing a kiss to his cheek and he follows her to his family. His mother is crying, his father is crying, and he wonders how - if - their faces would be different if he'd been coming home from a loss. He wonders if anyone here would have cared - their faces are bright and shining and so, so proud. He's their boy, their prodigal son, and it doesn't matter when he goes home because from their perspective he's already won.
And he sees the same thing in the faces of his parents, the same thing in the face of his wife, except there's a twinge of hope, there, too, two sorts of hope - one flavored dark with guilt, the other grayed with uncertainty. And when Katy presses in for a kiss, sweet lips welcoming, the dark hope rises in her. It's the hope that says, you're famous now, right?, the hope that says, come home, the hope that he feels mirrored on his own face on his worst days when the air smells like nothing but city and stress. It shines so bright in her eyes that he nearly drowns in it.
But he runs a finger across the slick surface of his thumbnail even as he loses himself in her lips and he thinks, no. No. Not yet.
He walks into his house like a blind man, feeling his way from wall to wall, trailing his feet through memory barely born and the hope of many memories to come. It feels less like a home than the Idol Mansion, he realizes with a shock. Or...no, it feels like a home, but it doesn't feel like his.
He looks around at the living room, at the comfortable clutter there that doesn't belong to him. Here and there there are wedding presents, beautiful things on shelves, immaculately dusted. Katy's things, though, lie in piles and drifts like snow across tables. He knows they're her things because they look like her, even if he's never seen them before, the way he could recognize a pair of Adam's boots among a dozen others. They look like they're Katy's, they fit here, they have her flavor and her charm. And suddenly he wonders if he still looks like they do, if he still looks like he fits here, too. If he fits her.
She wraps her arms around him from behind and presses her cheek to his back, and he grins and turns in her arms. "Hey." He says, and she grins at him. "Hey."
They kiss like they don't want to do anything else, lazy and slow, and then she sighs and disengages. "God, I've missed you," she says, and he swallows down words that don't ring true along with words that do because he doesn't need to say anything at all.
They've seen each other at the shows, and after, a few times, with him going to her hotel or her sneaking into the Idol Mansion, but this? This laziness, this perfection, he's missed. The Arkansas sun streams through the windows as she brings him drinks and they lie on the couch, slotted together. She plays with his fingers, tracing around his wedding ring, and picks up his hand by his thumb. She raises her eyebrows at the polish, and he feels himself flush.
"It's like..." He gestures wordlessly. "Adam and I. We wanted to show the world that we were friends despite its preconceptions, you know?"
She grins at him. "A Gay-Straight Alliance."
He grins back. "Exactly! It's also, well, we didn't actually talk about this, but we didn't really have to. It's also kind of a pledge. Me and him, in the final, and Gokey goes home."
"Finally." Katy lets her lips curl a little and Kris laughs, softly, at her expression. She smiles back, wry, and shakes her head.
He sips from the glass he last used on their honeymoon. "I know, I know. Could you imagine, Adam and him in the final? It wouldn't matter, anymore, whatever mindgames the judges have been playing to get him this far. As soon as they stood up there and sang, back to back, people'd see that he's got no fucking chance. I mean that'll be true of me, too, but at least I'll be goodnatured about it and not shove my faith down people's throats."
Katy frowns at him, a little, seeming to forget her own dark hope in the face of his self-deprecating smile. "You don't think you can win?"
Kris shook his head, thinking. "If by some impossible chance, Adam is eliminated before the finals, and it's me and Gokey up there? Yeah, I can win. But that's not going to happen." He smiled. "Katy, it's Adam. I know it's your job to believe in me, but come on."
Katy settles into the curve of his chest. "Yeah, well." She says, less agreeing and more not wanting to argue, twining her hands with Kris'. "Maybe God still has some surprises for you."
He presses a kiss to her temple. "Maybe He does. I'm sure He has some for poor old Danny. He's so cocky." He mouths down the side of Katy's face to her jaw. "He may have the spirit of his dead wife staring him over his shoulder, but I..." He kisses to the corner of her mouth, "I have a gorgeous," and to her dimple, "beautiful," her nose, "loving," her forehead, "living wife, right..." He touched noses with her, so close he was cross-eyed, "here." And he kisses her, slowly, deeply, while she laughs her way into his mouth, her tongue dancing with mirth and love.
He hikes her higher on his lap, sliding his hands up her legs, under her dress, and he feels her gasp. Her hands twine behind his head, grasping his hair in gentle fingers, and she presses in closer, giving a squirm that makes him shiver. He can feel her breasts pressing to his chest, familiar and strange all at once, and he half carries her to the bedroom.
She slides out of her dress while he remembers where he light switch is, flicking it off not for the lack of sight it would bring but for the clarity. The sun is setting, outside, and the room is bathed in dim gold. It falls across Katy's curves, pooling in the dimples at her hips, the dip between her breasts, the hollow of her neck. She's utterly gorgeous and so like a dream that he has to stop and stare, fearing to touch or she'll vanish.
She pulls him down, impatient, and makes quick work of his clothes. They roll around, fighting for dominance and fighting to fill the emptiness of the bed, and she ends up on top, flushed with victory. Suddenly he hears her voice, troubled, strange - You don't think you can win? - and Adam's smirk flashes across his mind, the way he smirks when he knows what Kris is thinking. Usually it makes him grin, but just now it makes him angry because this, this here, this golden dream isn't for Adam. He'll win the hearts of America and he deserves them, but this is where Kris belongs, this is where his heart is, and Adam can't have it.
He's rolling up and over Katie before he knows what he's doing, biting and licking his way into her mouth, sinking into her softness with a vengeance he can't quite truly feel. Her nails rake his back and she arches up into against him, gasping, harsh and perfect, and he thinks, mine.
Golden light turns to dusk and dusk to dark as Kris lies awake, body sated but mind afire with something he can't quite identify. He feels as if he wants to write a song, or perhaps cry, or laugh. Katy is curled against his chest, warm and soft, and he strokes a hand through her hair. It lies like pale moonbeams against his skin, and, clutching a handful of it between palm and palm, Kris begins to pray.
M is for Mouth.
Paula finds them, before the last night, rambling in her kind of insane, kind of incredibly sweet way. She tells them, "No matter what happens tonight, you're both winners" and it's exactly what Kris has been thinking since Gokey was voted off.
She leans up and presses a kiss first to Adam's face, who grins down at her with Kris' thoughts in his eyes, and second to Kris' own. Her lips are soft and warm on the curve of Kris' cheek but then Adam is pulling him close and there's another mouth, brushing through his hair, and Kris lets his eyes slide closed. Adam's kiss is slower, somehow more weighty, and as he pulls away his lower lip slides just barely across the shell of Kris' ear. Something in Kris' chest stutters, and he hopes to hell that the noise of the crowd and the crew are loud enough that Adam doesn't notice the hitch in his breath.
Paula pulls away, but Adam's lips linger just too long, and Kris swallows. He opens his eyes as Paula wanders off, the cameras following her like baby ducks, and turns in Adam's arms. Adam starts to pull back, both his body and his eyes, and Kris suddenly can't have that, not tonight, so he reaches up and cradles Adam's face in his palms, hooking his fingers behind Adam's ears.
Adam takes a deep breath and leans, just barely, into his touch. His eyes are bright with sadness and desperate hope and Kris gulps again. His hands slide down Adam's neck to lie flat against Adam's chest, and Adam's hands find purchase on Kris' hips, the heat of him seeping through his jeans. Kris leans up and Adam leans down until they're scant inches apart, centimeters, and Adam says, as if it's the hardest thing he's ever had to say, "Kris."
His breath ghosts across Kris' lips and Kris shudders, eyelashes fluttering, and says, "Yes?"
"I've...." Adam closes his eyes. "I've been dealing with this for months. I can continue to deal with it. You have a life, a love, you're married. If you don't want to give that up, I...I understand, and I can walk away now. I'll have to avoid you some on the tour, but I've gotten over worse." The last part's a lie, and they both know it. This close, even with the makeup, even with the mask, all Kris can see is the true, vulnerable, incredibly brave Adam, the Adam that's in love with him.
"What if all I want is to kiss you?" He asks, and Adam just - shuts off. A wall drops behind his eyes and he steps back, hands leaving Kris' hips. He stares at him, hard, for a minute. "Then no, this isn't going to work at all, I'm sorry." He says, voice cold. He summons about half a smile, on his face more a snarl. "Good luck tonight, Kris."
He turns away, and Kris gapes after him a moment. "Wait, that's not - fuck." He leaps forward, grabbing Adam's shoulder, and Adam shakes him off, spinning. His eyes are bright with anger, his voice rough as he grinds out, "Seriously, Kris, I can't do this with you if it's just a fling. You can't do that to me, you - you can't do that to Katy."
"That's not what I meant." Kris babbles, hands everywhere, trying to soothe Adam's spikes or maybe find cracks in his armor and tug, something, anything, to show him what he feels. "I meant, what if that's - what if everything else I have, it doesn't matter?" Adam stills, and Kris closes his eyes, finding the corner of himself that always knows what to say, that writes songs and gives the interviews he cares about. "What if I don't want any of it, what if all I want, in the whole world, the only thing I could ever ask, could ever dream of...." He opens his eyes to find Adam staring at him, mouth slightly open in surprise, "Is to do this?"
And he leans up in a rush, pressing his mouth to Adam's.
He can remember he and Katy's first kiss, his first kiss at all. They'd been sitting under a tree in her back yard. Kris had been fumbling and nervous, playing a song he'd written her on his father's too-big guiatr, and when he'd finished she'd just looked at him, eyes awed, and then leaned forward. Her nose had brushed his, and he'd gone cross-eyed with trying to look her in the eyes. Their mouths had been off-center, their teeth had knocked together, but she tasted like summer and dust and perfection.
This is nothing like that.
Adam's mouth is wider than Kris', his lips soft and slightly salty, slightly sweet with lipgloss. Kris slides his tongue along them, catching every bit of Adam's taste and then Adam reacts, his hands coming around Kris to slide over and across his back, his mouth opening under Kris' and Kris gasps. Adam kisses like he sings, intense and beautiful and effortless. His tongue wraps around Kris', strokes the roof of Kris' mouth, twists and tastes him. He walks Kris back to the wall, hands splayed against his lower back, and tilts Kris head back so that Kris is looking up at him. He stops a moment, breath coming short, and just looks at him, his pupils blown wide. He's breathtaking, and Kris runs his knuckles down the side of his face, feeling the softness of his skin. Adam's long throat works. "I swear to God, Kris, if you decide you don't want this - "
Kris yanks him down by his ears, ignoring his delicately-coiffed hair, and growls against his lips, "I won't." And he bites and tugs and licks his way into Adam's mouth and Adam shivers against him, and Kris thinks I did that. He kisses his way to Adam's jaw, hears him moan when Kris flutters his tongue against the soft space below his ear, and thinks, I did that. It's like he's hearing Adam unravel, fall apart under his mouth and it makes him bolder, makes him slide a hand across Adam's stomach, toying with the hairs and grinning against Adam's neck when Adam gasps. I did that. He, Kris Allen, is taking Adam Lambert apart with only his lips and his hands and it's pretty much the hottest thing ever.
Adam catches his hand as it slides higher, seeking a nipple. "God, Kris, much as I'd love, and I mean love, to let this progress 'til we're both spent and noodle-legged, we've got a place to be." He steps away, just a little, and grins, his lips shiny. "People to be seen by." His mask is slipping back into place and Kris catches a little flash of resignation in his eyes before he's all twinkling smiles again.
Kris closes the distance between the again, but he doesn't angle himself up for a kiss, he just looks at Adam, pressed up against his chest, and says, softly, "I'll talk to Katy. After the show, when you're doing all the interviews, I'll talk to her." Everyone would be so focused on Adam's victory that Kris could probably sneak away long enough to at least let Katy know that they needed to talk, that there were things they needed to talk about.
A few months ago and he wouldn't even have had to say anything for her to know that something wasn't right. Of course, a few months ago everything was right.
Adam looks down at him, and he thinks, smiling suddenly, everything is still right. "Kris, you don't have to- if you're not ready - "
Kris shakes his head. "I have to. It's not fair, otherwise. I should have told her when I first realized - " He stopped. Adam was staring at him, face unreadable. "The sooner the better."
Adam took his hand, and led him to the stage. The doors opened, and they stepped out into the familiar blue lighting. It was less like they were walking onto a stage and more like they were stepping into a space of pure sound, thousands of people screaming and yelling and cheering and clapping. Kris felt like he was floating on it all, and he wanted to cling to Adam's hand, use him as an anchor, but Adam slid away, raising his arms as he, too, was lifted up on their praise. But he was balanced on it like he was born there and Kris couldn't help the huge smile that stretched his face. God, he was so beautiful.
He sought out Katy's eyes in the crowd and she was smiling, standing there with his parents. She mouths God has some surprises and he nearly bursts into hysterical laughter right there on stage.
Adam slings an arm around him, casual as always and Kris leans into him as the crowds quiet and Seacrest fiddles with his envelope. He wonders how Katy will react - whether she knew, ever, during the long talks they've had about Adam, during his star-struck mooning, during his fond storytelling, did she maybe read into it even before he did?
"And the winner of American Idol 2009 is..."
He starts thinking about her voice, when they'd talked on the phone, her face when he saw her, what had she thought of Adam? She liked his voice - she wasn't crazy, after all - and she'd agreed with him that he was a nice guy, when he'd told her some of the things he'd done for Kris, some of the things he'd done for Allison, hell, even the stuff he'd done for Gokey ("he should be fucking sainted for that" Katy'd said, and he'd laughed and laughed). But had she ever wondered about Adam's intentions? Had she ever wondered about his?
"Kris Allen!"
It takes a minute for him to react, and then his hands go to his mouth, eyes wide because, because what?
Adam is laughing and hugging him, pulling him in and he smells like Adam always does and Kris wonders if there'll ever be a time when victory doesn't smell like Adam and he blinks and blinks and blinks eyes suddenly wet against Adam's suit and he pulls him close because this, here, forget the cheers and screams that fill his ears, forget the money and the record deal and the fame, this is what he's won, Adam's laughter in his hair and Adam's arms around him and Adam's heart beating wild against his cheek.
And when they ask him what he has to say he says, because it's true, "It feels good, but Adam deserves this." And he means "this", the cheers in his ears, the money and the record deal and the fame because Adam does. But he also means "this", the simple Arkansas man on the stage with the guitar because Adam deserves him, too.
Photographers are at the ready when he hugs Katy and this is not at all how he imagined it going and he can't...he can't do it now, not here, even when he's never been more sure of what he wants. But she keeps whispering in his ear, keeps murmuring and murmuring "We can be married again, Kris. We can be married."
And he presses his eyes so tight to her shoulder that he sees red and his tears seep through her dress and he says, mouthing it into her skin so no one can see, "No, Katy, we can't."
Coming soon - N is for New, and more!
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Kris, Kris/Katy, Kradison friendship
Wordcount: ~4000
Warning: Het (I know, right?) but not written very explicitly.
Disclaimer: Everyone mentioned belongs only to themselves, and none of this ever happened. Except the bits they showed on TV.
Summary/Notes: Original author's note, and first nine letters, are here.
So, um, from J to K was a pretty big jump in length (~500 words to ~1000 words) and if I'd continued on that track I'd be doing full fics for each of the letters in no time. And while that will happen eventually (X is the first in a trio of epilogue fics), I didn't quite want to do it YET. So you get three, all of them ~1000 to ~2000 words, and the next few will probably hover around that length. At this point I've given up pretty much on the "don't use the prompt word in the fic" thing. Also the prompts of some of these might seem a little strange (L has more Katy in it than K does) but I'm actually doing that on purpose - using it for the word that's L makes it have an entirely different feel than if I'd used the same scene for K. So let me know how that worked!
K is for Katy.
He's been looking forward to this home visit for a long time - it feels like forever, really. The last week has been hell - he knew he was going home either way, whether as loser or hero, and he'd kept Adam up late night after night, talking about how much he missed his wife, his home, his brother, his friends. Adam had reciprocated - telling Kris about the parties he's missed, the people. He mentions Brad especially and a boy named Drake, his eyes going hot and the corner of his mouth turning up, and Kris generally excuses himself to sleep pretty soon after that. He feels...strange, when Adam talks about the entertainer's life he left. Almost sorrowful. It feels to him that the friends he's made are friends of his mask, and the lovers love him for his perfect face. He wonders how many of them knew Adam when he was the chubby ginger boy getting picked on, how many of them even knew that he'd ever been anything but a proud and strutting raven clad in stars.
He isn't sure that they'd even care. He's less sure why he does. Adam's happy, that's clear - happy with how far he's gotten in the competition (obviously), happy to go home and see his family, revisit his old life. But there's a sorrow that lingers in the backs of his eyes that mirrors something Kris can taste in his throat.
On the last day in the Idol Mansion before they fly home Kris sits on his bed, guitar in his lap but not really playing, Bible on his knee but not really praying. He's watching Adam as he repaints his nails, his large hands steady and delicate, bottle of polish balanced on the bed beside him. He's singing under his breath, something high and haunting that Kris couldn't see himself attempting in a million years, and he gets caught in it, a little carried away on its dream.
Adam finished his left hand and shakes it, lips pursing a little as he blows lightly to dry the polish faster. He notices Kris' eyes on him and smirks, raising an eyebrow. "See something you like?" He teases gently, and Kris rolls his eyes.
Suddenly he slides off the bed, his guitar and Bible bouncing, and scoots up next to Adam. "Do me." He says, holding out his right hand.
Adam's eyebrow inches higher, and he bites his lips to keep from laughing. Kris snickers first, and then they're both cracking up hard, curled into one another, the bed bouncing with their laughter. "Oh my Ra," Adam gasps, "If the rooms are bugged you know that's going on air."
Kris shrugs, still shaking with giggles. "I don't think they are. Isn't that, like, a privacy violation? And anyway, I don't care." He straightens to find Adam's face close to his own, his lips twisted in the ends of a laugh. His eyes are a warm sort of blue, his pupils wide, and Kris slides easily from laughter to something more precious. "I was serious, you know." He says, voice soft, and he feels like he's standing on the edge of a knife but he doesn't know whether to step forward or back, to fall or to fly. Finally he raises his hand, wiggling his fingers. He drops his eyes to examine his nails. "Just the thumb, I think. Don't want to freak Katy out too much."
There's something off about Adam's cheerful "Of course," but Kris can't see his face as he turns, too sudden, to grab the polish. He takes Kris' hand and holds it still, fingers warm and gentle, and maybe he's still got laughter trapped inside because his hands are shaking, much different than how steady they were while Kris watched him before. But he's Adam Lambert and Kris doesn't think he's ever done a botched nail polish job in his life. His eyes are strangely intent on Kris' fingers and Kris grins at the the little flicker of tongue at the corner of his mouth that mean's he's concentrating. Or, sometimes, nervous, but there's no reason for him to be nervous, now, so it must be concentrating.
When Adam's done he twists his thumb hand here and there, nodding to himself. "Might I ask why?" He says, finally meeting Kris' eyes again, "Starting to embrace your inner emo boy, one finger at a time?"
Kris smiles but doesn't laugh, shy. He thinks about the answer, and he realizes that the lingering bitterness in his throat is at the thought of leaving Adam, of not living in the same room with him, even for a short time, and he wants...he wants to get rid of the sadness in Adam's eyes and he can't take Adam with him to Arkansas but maybe this is the next best thing. He raises his eyes to Adam's, still so close, and says, "I just thought...I'd like to carry a piece of you home with me."
Adam drops his hand like it burned him and explodes upward, face pained. "Jesus fucking Christ, Kris!" He stalks to the window. "Do you even know what you're - you - " He seems to get stuck without words entirely, making little strangled noises, slamming an arm against the wall and leaning on it, his eyes on the street below. "Jesus fucking Christ." He mutters again, softer this time.
Kris stares at him, startled and worried. "Adam?" He stands, and reseats himself on his own bed, a little lost, a little more hurt. "Uh, I just thought...all those stupid rumors about how we couldn't possibly be friends, because we're too different, because you're gay and I'm Christian and married and whatever other bullshit reasons they've thrown at us, I thought this could...settle them, you know? Besides," He takes a deep breath. "I will miss you."
Adam runs a hand through his hair, still not looking at Kris, and sighs a long sigh. Kris bites his lip. "But if you don't - I mean, I can take it off - "
Adam turns, mask in place, smiling a little sadly. "No, no, it's a good idea." He chuckles and sits back down on his bed, going to repaint his other hand. "I like it, actually. Show the idiots that friendship is blind, right?"
Kris goes back to his guitar, liking the way his thumbnail looks when he strums a chord, but he keeps an eye on Adam, contemplating. What the fuck had just happened? Adam had been, well, Adam, open and warm and pretty much Kris' favorite person in the world, and then, well. He'd gotten angry, angry at Kris for really the first time, and now he was all oyster-shell again and it hurt because it had been a gesture half for Adam, half to make him happy, and it seemed to do just the opposite.
Adam seems to go back to normal fast, though, finishing his right hand except for his right thumbnail. He even goes so far as to get out the polish remover, carefully wiping away the last remains of the old polish from his thumb. "There." He says, grinning a real grin, if a bit wistful, at Kris. "If you can carry a piece of me, I can carry a piece of you."
Kris wants to hug him, then, press himself into his chest until he can feel his heart beating, wants to say goodbye with words his lips don't even know the shape of. But his phone rings in his pocket and Katy's silly face, eyes crossed and lips pursed, showed on his ID. So he settles for a smile not nearly big enough and answers it.
It's only after he hears the voice of his wife in his ear that he thinks, favorite person in the world that I'm not married to. He chuckles at something Katy says. Obviously.
L is for Loss.
He arrives home in a shower of shouts and cheers, a tumbling, laughing, riotous circus of color and noise. Katy meets him at the airport, standing out from the crowd with his family in her green summer dress and her windblown blonde hair, a gorgeous doll spun of memory and love and sunlight and Kris thinks, home.
There are cameras everywhere, of course. He barely notices them anymore, when he's in public, just shadows that murmur instructions to each other through headsets permanently glued to their ears. She's a little more skittish, smiling around her like she doesn't mean it, until Kris folds her into an embrace and they melt together like they're meant to be.
She pulls away quickly, pressing a kiss to his cheek and he follows her to his family. His mother is crying, his father is crying, and he wonders how - if - their faces would be different if he'd been coming home from a loss. He wonders if anyone here would have cared - their faces are bright and shining and so, so proud. He's their boy, their prodigal son, and it doesn't matter when he goes home because from their perspective he's already won.
And he sees the same thing in the faces of his parents, the same thing in the face of his wife, except there's a twinge of hope, there, too, two sorts of hope - one flavored dark with guilt, the other grayed with uncertainty. And when Katy presses in for a kiss, sweet lips welcoming, the dark hope rises in her. It's the hope that says, you're famous now, right?, the hope that says, come home, the hope that he feels mirrored on his own face on his worst days when the air smells like nothing but city and stress. It shines so bright in her eyes that he nearly drowns in it.
But he runs a finger across the slick surface of his thumbnail even as he loses himself in her lips and he thinks, no. No. Not yet.
He walks into his house like a blind man, feeling his way from wall to wall, trailing his feet through memory barely born and the hope of many memories to come. It feels less like a home than the Idol Mansion, he realizes with a shock. Or...no, it feels like a home, but it doesn't feel like his.
He looks around at the living room, at the comfortable clutter there that doesn't belong to him. Here and there there are wedding presents, beautiful things on shelves, immaculately dusted. Katy's things, though, lie in piles and drifts like snow across tables. He knows they're her things because they look like her, even if he's never seen them before, the way he could recognize a pair of Adam's boots among a dozen others. They look like they're Katy's, they fit here, they have her flavor and her charm. And suddenly he wonders if he still looks like they do, if he still looks like he fits here, too. If he fits her.
She wraps her arms around him from behind and presses her cheek to his back, and he grins and turns in her arms. "Hey." He says, and she grins at him. "Hey."
They kiss like they don't want to do anything else, lazy and slow, and then she sighs and disengages. "God, I've missed you," she says, and he swallows down words that don't ring true along with words that do because he doesn't need to say anything at all.
They've seen each other at the shows, and after, a few times, with him going to her hotel or her sneaking into the Idol Mansion, but this? This laziness, this perfection, he's missed. The Arkansas sun streams through the windows as she brings him drinks and they lie on the couch, slotted together. She plays with his fingers, tracing around his wedding ring, and picks up his hand by his thumb. She raises her eyebrows at the polish, and he feels himself flush.
"It's like..." He gestures wordlessly. "Adam and I. We wanted to show the world that we were friends despite its preconceptions, you know?"
She grins at him. "A Gay-Straight Alliance."
He grins back. "Exactly! It's also, well, we didn't actually talk about this, but we didn't really have to. It's also kind of a pledge. Me and him, in the final, and Gokey goes home."
"Finally." Katy lets her lips curl a little and Kris laughs, softly, at her expression. She smiles back, wry, and shakes her head.
He sips from the glass he last used on their honeymoon. "I know, I know. Could you imagine, Adam and him in the final? It wouldn't matter, anymore, whatever mindgames the judges have been playing to get him this far. As soon as they stood up there and sang, back to back, people'd see that he's got no fucking chance. I mean that'll be true of me, too, but at least I'll be goodnatured about it and not shove my faith down people's throats."
Katy frowns at him, a little, seeming to forget her own dark hope in the face of his self-deprecating smile. "You don't think you can win?"
Kris shook his head, thinking. "If by some impossible chance, Adam is eliminated before the finals, and it's me and Gokey up there? Yeah, I can win. But that's not going to happen." He smiled. "Katy, it's Adam. I know it's your job to believe in me, but come on."
Katy settles into the curve of his chest. "Yeah, well." She says, less agreeing and more not wanting to argue, twining her hands with Kris'. "Maybe God still has some surprises for you."
He presses a kiss to her temple. "Maybe He does. I'm sure He has some for poor old Danny. He's so cocky." He mouths down the side of Katy's face to her jaw. "He may have the spirit of his dead wife staring him over his shoulder, but I..." He kisses to the corner of her mouth, "I have a gorgeous," and to her dimple, "beautiful," her nose, "loving," her forehead, "living wife, right..." He touched noses with her, so close he was cross-eyed, "here." And he kisses her, slowly, deeply, while she laughs her way into his mouth, her tongue dancing with mirth and love.
He hikes her higher on his lap, sliding his hands up her legs, under her dress, and he feels her gasp. Her hands twine behind his head, grasping his hair in gentle fingers, and she presses in closer, giving a squirm that makes him shiver. He can feel her breasts pressing to his chest, familiar and strange all at once, and he half carries her to the bedroom.
She slides out of her dress while he remembers where he light switch is, flicking it off not for the lack of sight it would bring but for the clarity. The sun is setting, outside, and the room is bathed in dim gold. It falls across Katy's curves, pooling in the dimples at her hips, the dip between her breasts, the hollow of her neck. She's utterly gorgeous and so like a dream that he has to stop and stare, fearing to touch or she'll vanish.
She pulls him down, impatient, and makes quick work of his clothes. They roll around, fighting for dominance and fighting to fill the emptiness of the bed, and she ends up on top, flushed with victory. Suddenly he hears her voice, troubled, strange - You don't think you can win? - and Adam's smirk flashes across his mind, the way he smirks when he knows what Kris is thinking. Usually it makes him grin, but just now it makes him angry because this, this here, this golden dream isn't for Adam. He'll win the hearts of America and he deserves them, but this is where Kris belongs, this is where his heart is, and Adam can't have it.
He's rolling up and over Katie before he knows what he's doing, biting and licking his way into her mouth, sinking into her softness with a vengeance he can't quite truly feel. Her nails rake his back and she arches up into against him, gasping, harsh and perfect, and he thinks, mine.
Golden light turns to dusk and dusk to dark as Kris lies awake, body sated but mind afire with something he can't quite identify. He feels as if he wants to write a song, or perhaps cry, or laugh. Katy is curled against his chest, warm and soft, and he strokes a hand through her hair. It lies like pale moonbeams against his skin, and, clutching a handful of it between palm and palm, Kris begins to pray.
M is for Mouth.
Paula finds them, before the last night, rambling in her kind of insane, kind of incredibly sweet way. She tells them, "No matter what happens tonight, you're both winners" and it's exactly what Kris has been thinking since Gokey was voted off.
She leans up and presses a kiss first to Adam's face, who grins down at her with Kris' thoughts in his eyes, and second to Kris' own. Her lips are soft and warm on the curve of Kris' cheek but then Adam is pulling him close and there's another mouth, brushing through his hair, and Kris lets his eyes slide closed. Adam's kiss is slower, somehow more weighty, and as he pulls away his lower lip slides just barely across the shell of Kris' ear. Something in Kris' chest stutters, and he hopes to hell that the noise of the crowd and the crew are loud enough that Adam doesn't notice the hitch in his breath.
Paula pulls away, but Adam's lips linger just too long, and Kris swallows. He opens his eyes as Paula wanders off, the cameras following her like baby ducks, and turns in Adam's arms. Adam starts to pull back, both his body and his eyes, and Kris suddenly can't have that, not tonight, so he reaches up and cradles Adam's face in his palms, hooking his fingers behind Adam's ears.
Adam takes a deep breath and leans, just barely, into his touch. His eyes are bright with sadness and desperate hope and Kris gulps again. His hands slide down Adam's neck to lie flat against Adam's chest, and Adam's hands find purchase on Kris' hips, the heat of him seeping through his jeans. Kris leans up and Adam leans down until they're scant inches apart, centimeters, and Adam says, as if it's the hardest thing he's ever had to say, "Kris."
His breath ghosts across Kris' lips and Kris shudders, eyelashes fluttering, and says, "Yes?"
"I've...." Adam closes his eyes. "I've been dealing with this for months. I can continue to deal with it. You have a life, a love, you're married. If you don't want to give that up, I...I understand, and I can walk away now. I'll have to avoid you some on the tour, but I've gotten over worse." The last part's a lie, and they both know it. This close, even with the makeup, even with the mask, all Kris can see is the true, vulnerable, incredibly brave Adam, the Adam that's in love with him.
"What if all I want is to kiss you?" He asks, and Adam just - shuts off. A wall drops behind his eyes and he steps back, hands leaving Kris' hips. He stares at him, hard, for a minute. "Then no, this isn't going to work at all, I'm sorry." He says, voice cold. He summons about half a smile, on his face more a snarl. "Good luck tonight, Kris."
He turns away, and Kris gapes after him a moment. "Wait, that's not - fuck." He leaps forward, grabbing Adam's shoulder, and Adam shakes him off, spinning. His eyes are bright with anger, his voice rough as he grinds out, "Seriously, Kris, I can't do this with you if it's just a fling. You can't do that to me, you - you can't do that to Katy."
"That's not what I meant." Kris babbles, hands everywhere, trying to soothe Adam's spikes or maybe find cracks in his armor and tug, something, anything, to show him what he feels. "I meant, what if that's - what if everything else I have, it doesn't matter?" Adam stills, and Kris closes his eyes, finding the corner of himself that always knows what to say, that writes songs and gives the interviews he cares about. "What if I don't want any of it, what if all I want, in the whole world, the only thing I could ever ask, could ever dream of...." He opens his eyes to find Adam staring at him, mouth slightly open in surprise, "Is to do this?"
And he leans up in a rush, pressing his mouth to Adam's.
He can remember he and Katy's first kiss, his first kiss at all. They'd been sitting under a tree in her back yard. Kris had been fumbling and nervous, playing a song he'd written her on his father's too-big guiatr, and when he'd finished she'd just looked at him, eyes awed, and then leaned forward. Her nose had brushed his, and he'd gone cross-eyed with trying to look her in the eyes. Their mouths had been off-center, their teeth had knocked together, but she tasted like summer and dust and perfection.
This is nothing like that.
Adam's mouth is wider than Kris', his lips soft and slightly salty, slightly sweet with lipgloss. Kris slides his tongue along them, catching every bit of Adam's taste and then Adam reacts, his hands coming around Kris to slide over and across his back, his mouth opening under Kris' and Kris gasps. Adam kisses like he sings, intense and beautiful and effortless. His tongue wraps around Kris', strokes the roof of Kris' mouth, twists and tastes him. He walks Kris back to the wall, hands splayed against his lower back, and tilts Kris head back so that Kris is looking up at him. He stops a moment, breath coming short, and just looks at him, his pupils blown wide. He's breathtaking, and Kris runs his knuckles down the side of his face, feeling the softness of his skin. Adam's long throat works. "I swear to God, Kris, if you decide you don't want this - "
Kris yanks him down by his ears, ignoring his delicately-coiffed hair, and growls against his lips, "I won't." And he bites and tugs and licks his way into Adam's mouth and Adam shivers against him, and Kris thinks I did that. He kisses his way to Adam's jaw, hears him moan when Kris flutters his tongue against the soft space below his ear, and thinks, I did that. It's like he's hearing Adam unravel, fall apart under his mouth and it makes him bolder, makes him slide a hand across Adam's stomach, toying with the hairs and grinning against Adam's neck when Adam gasps. I did that. He, Kris Allen, is taking Adam Lambert apart with only his lips and his hands and it's pretty much the hottest thing ever.
Adam catches his hand as it slides higher, seeking a nipple. "God, Kris, much as I'd love, and I mean love, to let this progress 'til we're both spent and noodle-legged, we've got a place to be." He steps away, just a little, and grins, his lips shiny. "People to be seen by." His mask is slipping back into place and Kris catches a little flash of resignation in his eyes before he's all twinkling smiles again.
Kris closes the distance between the again, but he doesn't angle himself up for a kiss, he just looks at Adam, pressed up against his chest, and says, softly, "I'll talk to Katy. After the show, when you're doing all the interviews, I'll talk to her." Everyone would be so focused on Adam's victory that Kris could probably sneak away long enough to at least let Katy know that they needed to talk, that there were things they needed to talk about.
A few months ago and he wouldn't even have had to say anything for her to know that something wasn't right. Of course, a few months ago everything was right.
Adam looks down at him, and he thinks, smiling suddenly, everything is still right. "Kris, you don't have to- if you're not ready - "
Kris shakes his head. "I have to. It's not fair, otherwise. I should have told her when I first realized - " He stopped. Adam was staring at him, face unreadable. "The sooner the better."
Adam took his hand, and led him to the stage. The doors opened, and they stepped out into the familiar blue lighting. It was less like they were walking onto a stage and more like they were stepping into a space of pure sound, thousands of people screaming and yelling and cheering and clapping. Kris felt like he was floating on it all, and he wanted to cling to Adam's hand, use him as an anchor, but Adam slid away, raising his arms as he, too, was lifted up on their praise. But he was balanced on it like he was born there and Kris couldn't help the huge smile that stretched his face. God, he was so beautiful.
He sought out Katy's eyes in the crowd and she was smiling, standing there with his parents. She mouths God has some surprises and he nearly bursts into hysterical laughter right there on stage.
Adam slings an arm around him, casual as always and Kris leans into him as the crowds quiet and Seacrest fiddles with his envelope. He wonders how Katy will react - whether she knew, ever, during the long talks they've had about Adam, during his star-struck mooning, during his fond storytelling, did she maybe read into it even before he did?
"And the winner of American Idol 2009 is..."
He starts thinking about her voice, when they'd talked on the phone, her face when he saw her, what had she thought of Adam? She liked his voice - she wasn't crazy, after all - and she'd agreed with him that he was a nice guy, when he'd told her some of the things he'd done for Kris, some of the things he'd done for Allison, hell, even the stuff he'd done for Gokey ("he should be fucking sainted for that" Katy'd said, and he'd laughed and laughed). But had she ever wondered about Adam's intentions? Had she ever wondered about his?
"Kris Allen!"
It takes a minute for him to react, and then his hands go to his mouth, eyes wide because, because what?
Adam is laughing and hugging him, pulling him in and he smells like Adam always does and Kris wonders if there'll ever be a time when victory doesn't smell like Adam and he blinks and blinks and blinks eyes suddenly wet against Adam's suit and he pulls him close because this, here, forget the cheers and screams that fill his ears, forget the money and the record deal and the fame, this is what he's won, Adam's laughter in his hair and Adam's arms around him and Adam's heart beating wild against his cheek.
And when they ask him what he has to say he says, because it's true, "It feels good, but Adam deserves this." And he means "this", the cheers in his ears, the money and the record deal and the fame because Adam does. But he also means "this", the simple Arkansas man on the stage with the guitar because Adam deserves him, too.
Photographers are at the ready when he hugs Katy and this is not at all how he imagined it going and he can't...he can't do it now, not here, even when he's never been more sure of what he wants. But she keeps whispering in his ear, keeps murmuring and murmuring "We can be married again, Kris. We can be married."
And he presses his eyes so tight to her shoulder that he sees red and his tears seep through her dress and he says, mouthing it into her skin so no one can see, "No, Katy, we can't."
Coming soon - N is for New, and more!