The Collaboration - Chapter 23
Title: The Collaboration
Author: fictionfreak15
Beta: gwencarmichael Love You!!!! <3
Pairing: Adam & OMC, Adommy
Disclaimer: This did not happen. Don't own the celebs mentioned in the story.
Warnings: This fic contains swearing, insensitive comments, some homophobia later, light violence and a dash of sex
Summary: Adam is asked to lend his vocals skills after an emotional performance at the Oscars catches the artistic interest of a "High Rock" singer named Calad, right before Adam starts working on his new music video. When the pressures of the music industry and intolerance threaten to test their abilities as artists, the friendship they have formed must hold them together.
Special Author's Note: I’ve made up a rock band in this story called Tamera’s First Born. The members of the band are completely fictional; however, any song titles, lyrics and album names are taken from the real life band Coheed an Cambria. I will post links in various chapters that will include specific Coheed and Cambria songs mentioned.
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Chapter Note: TFB members are not altogether comfortable with Calad's involvement in the video and Adam hopes to convince them not to worry...
A/N: Ok, so...like, you know when you think something won't be so bad or you haven't had time to sit with it long enough, but once you do, you completely change your mind about it, but you don't want to admit it? Well, that's sort of what's happened to the band here, so try and keep that in mind. It's a bit of a surprise, and not the good kind...(Sorry Grady fans)Love and Respect - fictionfreak15
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Chapter 23
Over the next few days, the other members of the band figured it out. Adam and Tommy both felt that it was kind of stupid to sit Monte and LP down and break the news to them, like they'd care, but it was difficult for them to miss the looks the two lovers would give each other. LP just blew it off, shrugging inwardly and didn't think a thing of it. Monte took Adam aside at one point, curious and not wanting to make assumptions behind his back.
"Is it, like...official between you and Tommy now?"
Adam just decided to be honest giving without too many details. "We sort of...yeah, I'm in love with him." Then he asked, "That doesn't, uh...is that gonna be weird for you? I mean Tommy actually works with us and..."
Monte cut him off very abruptly and reassured him that it would not be a problem for him if Adam was dating someone in the band.
And that was it. They were still a band. They still liked playing music together, and actually it felt like things couldn't be better because Adam was happier.
In that time as well, Adam called Calad again just to bullshit. They went over scheduling and travel plans, Adam saying that he didn't need to bring anything...just himself.
"You sound different..." said Calad.
"Just happy. You sound different, too, you know?"
"I do?" Calad asked.
"Yeah, you don't sound so tired. I like it," Adam said with an encouraging tone. "How are you doing with the other guys? Have you talked at all?"
Calad sighed. "They don't wanna talk about me flying out to LA. Even Grady...I don't think they're as comfortable with me being in your video as they first let on."
"Did you tell them anything we talked about?" asked Adam, hoping this wasn't the beginning of a problem.
Calad said, "They don't wanna talk about it. They...I think they just wanna pretend it's not gonna happen."
"Do you still want to do it?"
"Yes," Calad answered confidently. "I'm just wondering if they feel this is one more thing I'm doing that they don't have a say in. I did ask them though...what they thought. I don't think they were telling me everything."
"Do you want me to talk to them? We could set up a web cam...have a conference," Adam suggested.
"No, if they don't wanna talk about it with me, then..."
"Yeah, but...Listen, no one could have convinced me to be on your record, Calad, except you, because you were the one who knew what was going on, you know? You knew your concept. You were the only one who could have explained it to me. It's the same with my video. Let me try. I think if you have their blessing, it'll be better for all of you."
Calad said, "I'm going to be in your video, Adam. It would be nice if the guys were behind me, but it's not gonna matter one way or another. If they want to wait until the whole damn thing is finished before they know how great it's gonna be, then that's on them."
Adam bit his lip, a bit worried. "I'd feel better if I could talk to them. Sometimes I worry about you all the way over there. What if Mike..."
"Don't worry about Mike, Adam. He wouldn't dare," said Calad. "I'm not afraid of him."
Adam paused, then said softly, "That's good."
Calad said, "If it will make you feel any better, I'll tell them you wanna talk to them and see what they say. I gotta be honest though, I don't think they'll want to talk about it."
Adam felt something heavy in his heart as they arranged a conference for tomorrow. Chris and Grady had ended up being so nice and decent to Adam while he was there. Now Calad was talking like they wouldn't give him the time of day. Were they that two faced? Or was Calad misunderstanding? It shouldn't have mattered what they didn't know before Calad told them. If they had a problem, why didn't they say anything?
When he hung up, Adam tried not to let it get him down, especially when Tommy walked into the computer/guest room where Adam sat on the bed. With a smirk, Tommy gently sat sideways on his lover's lap and hooked his arm around Adam's shoulders. Adam was glad he was there, and he smiled.
"What's the matter, sweetie?" Tommy asked in a sympathetic but playful tone as he pecked at Adam's ear and cheek.
Adam couldn't suppress a sigh, and he nuzzled Tommy a little before answering. But he asked a question first. "You know how I want Calad Areese in my video?" Tommy nodded. "Well, is it okay with you if he still does it?"
"Yeah." Tommy shrugged like it was no big deal. "I mean, you two decided on this before we got together. And I understand that Calad just has the right look you want for the imagery. You're just playing lovers; you're not actually gonna be lovers."
Adam smiled. Tommy was so cool. He didn't mind Adam's insecurities. He just answered his questions, eased his fears, and that was it.
"Is that what's really bugging you?" asked the blonde.
Adam shrugged. "I guess...Calad's kinda getting flack from his band. They don't really want him in my video."
Tommy sighed. "What are you gonna do?"
Adam said, "I'm gonna try to talk to them and see if I can get them to feel better about it. I think they might be just a little closed minded. I've dealt with closed minded people before. The only thing I can do is just talk it out, if they'll listen."
"You want me to be there with you?" Tommy asked.
Adam said, "We're going to try to get a web cam going so I can talk to them face to face. I don't mind if you're in the room with me, but I want the responsibility of talking to them."
Tommy nodded. "I can be quiet. I just want to listen."
Adam smiled and stroked the side of Tommy's face. "I love you, baby."
***
Lisa, Grady's girlfriend, had a web cam so she could see him while he was on the road. Grady's computer was down, so he took Calad over to her house so he could use it to talk to Adam. She let them in. "Hi, Calad."
"Hi, Lisa...you cut your hair," said Calad, remembering the young biker babe to have long, flowing locks that hung down her back.
"Yeah, like six months ago," said Lisa...like duh.
"Has it been that long?" Calad asked with guilt.
"Forget it, honey. I'm surprised you even noticed," Lisa chuckled. She was kind of cool. She didn't care enough about Calad's strange reclusiveness to be mad.
She took them into the den and left them to their conversation after setting everything up. If they had come to talk to the lead singer for Divine Heresy, she would have begged Grady to let her listen in. But Lisa wasn't a big Adam Lambert fan, so she just left them to it.
They sat at Lisa's desk and could see themselves in a small box on the lower right hand corner of the screen. Adam's image was showing on the full screen.
"Hi guys..." Adam said merrily. He noticed that he could only see Grady and Calad in his view, and they didn't look happy. They greeted him in return, and Adam said, "I can only see two of you..."
Calad said, "Yeah...um, Grady's the only one who..." he trailed off.
Grady took over for him. "Uh, Adam...you know, the other dudes had some stuff to do, and they couldn't make it, but Calad and me'll tell Mike and Chris what you got to say."
Adam was disappointed, easily seeing through Grady's excuse, but after looking at the expression on Calad's face, he supposed he could just he happy that at least one of them decided to listen to him. He said, "Okay, well...how you guys doing?"
Grady said, "We're good, you know, the record's coming along. We're actually due to release it in June."
"June! Wow, that's awesome!" Adam said, smiling.
"Yeah, I know," said Grady. "Anyway, Calad said you wanted to talk?"
Adam cleared his throat. "Yeah, I did. You know, I can understand some feelings of caution you guys might have about Calad being in one of my videos. I mean...I get it, okay, and I'm glad that...well, at least one of you are here to maybe let me help you set your mind at ease."
Grady said, "Hey, you know, what happens, happens. I gotta admit, I'm curious about all of it, and...I'm not gonna lie...I'm wondering what everyone's gonna, you know...how they're gonna react."
Adam nodded, but didn't interrupt.
"It's just not going to be what people expect. You know, High Rock has a certain image...not exactly '80's metal tough guy', but it's also not...two guys hugging in a video either, you know what I'm saying?" Grady chuckled.
"Yeah, and I totally understand your concerns. I mean, I'm not stupid..." said Adam. "So I just want to try and tell you more details so that you don't have to let your imaginations tell you what gonna happen."
Grady listened while Adam explained. "My next single is a song from my album called 'Broken Open,'" Adam explained that he wrote it and what it meant to him, that it was a song about being strong for someone else, when their whole world is just falling apart. "You tell the person to just let it go, and you'll help hold it all together." Grady liked the idea of the song - in a mushy, 'chick flick' kinda way, but he didn't say it like that. Then he listened to Adam talk about the concept of the video.
"We plan on making it as soft and dream-like as the song sounds. It's one person reassuring the other and telling them everything's going to be okay. So it only makes sense that I have someone in the video to sing the song to. To be honest, I know a lot of people would be more comfortable if I had a woman in the video with me, but that would also make a lot of other people angry..."
"You'd look like a sell out..." Grady offered.
"Exactly, and to be honest, I don't want to put a girl in with me. It just so happens that Calad has the face, the presence, the personality that I had in mind for complementing the image of the video. And, you know, if I could find another gay dude to put in the video with me if everyone would be okay with it, I probably would consider it if they had the right look. But, I'm also trying to express myself, so that means doing what I have to do in spite of what people say about it. As it is, Calad has the perfect look and has agreed to help me. I'm looking at this as kind of...well, a theater roll for Calad to play."
Grady nodded, "Do you mind if I ask, you know, what it's gonna look like? I mean, how are you two going to interact in the video?"
Adam smirked. "Well, it's 'Broken Open', not 'Brokeback Mountain', if that's what you're worried about."
Calad snorted at the joke. Grady, who'd actually been worried about that, lightened up after a minute and started laughing with the rest of them.
Adam brought it down a bit so he could finish explaining. "No, seriously, there's gonna be a lot of shots where Calad isn't even looking at me. He's just gonna be sitting somewhere looking all sad, and I'll be around...singing. You know, I think we talked about something subtle, like putting my hand on his shoulder, also lifting up his chin so he can face me."
Grady nodded, as if Adam needed his approval. Adam blew it off. Like the man said, he was just worried about how other people - High Rock fans especially - would react. He understood that.
Adam concluded, "I mean, I don't intend for there to be a tremendous shock to come from all this. It's not a shocking song; it's a beautiful song. It's just going to be done my way...you know, a story told from my perspective."
Grady had a 'you sure that's all?' kind of look on his face, but he said, "So, it's just gonna be done in a way that looks like you're playing a part?"
Adam couldn't help but sigh just a little, wondering how many times he had to explain himself. Grady was just so afraid that it was going to 'look gay'. He could see that the drummer may not fully understand. Trying to hide the frustration in his voice, Adam finally managed to say, "Yeah, basically." It was too much work to explain it all over again. The important thing was that Grady seemed to be feeling better about everything. Maybe he could convey his new perspective to the rest of the band, and there would be no hard feelings toward Calad.
Grady said, "Well, thanks, Adam. Um...I certainly do understand a little more, and I wanna thank you for taking the time out of your day to help us out."
"No problem, Grady. It's good to see you again." Adam smiled.
"Yeah, good seeing you, too." Grady looked at Calad and said, "You wanna...talk?"
Calad nodded, and Grady waved a little at the computer, saying, "Bye." He got up from his chair and left the room to go and find Lisa.
"Hey, Adam..."
"Hey, Calad...Listen..." Adam appeared to gesture to someone else and waited while a young man with blonde hair that Calad had seen before entered the frame with Adam. He leaned down on a knee next to him and looked into the camera.
"I plan on making a proper introduction when you get here, Calad, but since he's here...This is Tommy. Tommy, meet Calad Areese."
"Hi, Tommy."
"Hey, Calad. Good seeing you, man. I like your music. Adam let me hear the stuff you sent over." Tommy was smiling and being very polite.
"Thanks. I'll send you the set with an advanced copy of our new record." Calad still looked a bit shy, but not as much as when he first met Adam all those weeks ago.
"Thanks, man!" Tommy accepted the offer. "I can't wait to hear it, especially the stuff you got Adam to do."
Adam was sitting on his chair, smiling proudly. He started to play with the back of Tommy's hair a little bit.
"Are you going to be there for the shoot?" Calad asked.
Tommy said, "Yeah, I mean...I'll hang around for as long as I'm out of the way, anyway. If you come early enough, we'll take you around LA, you know. We'll hang out."
"That sounds great, Tommy. I can't wait." Calad smiled bashfully.
Adam leaned down and whispered into Tommy's ear. Tommy looked at him, smiling and nodding and then got up. "Bye, Calad...gotta go!" Tommy made a peace sign.
"Okay. Bye, Tommy. See you soon." Calad flashed the Horned Hand in a more rock and roll type of a fashion.
Adam smirked. When Tommy was gone, Adam looked at Calad and almost said, 'He's cute, huh?' but, after getting to know Calad a little better, he decided to spare him the inevitable blush that the statement would illicit and just said, "I do hope you can come in time to hang out. I wanna show my band off to you."
Calad hesitated, but tried to keep his expression bright. "I'm looking forward to it, Adam...but I'm just a little nervous. I...I want to make a good impression on your friends, but...maybe you could tell me what to say so they'll like me?"
Adam arched an eye brow and smiled as if Calad was silly. "Of course they'll like you. You just have to be yourself. They're a great group of guys, so you don't have anything to worry about." He saw Calad nod, but he looked doubtful about himself. Adam offered, "If you get nervous...um...they like to laugh...maybe you could tell them a joke or something...if you feel like you need to break the ice."
"I only know one."
"Really? We'll let's here it." Adam waited expectantly.
Calad said, "Okay. A termite walks into a bar and asks, 'Where's the bartender?'" Then he stopped.
Adam waited for a few moments for him to finish the joke. "That's it?"
"That's it..." Calad said, nodding, then let his eyes wander in awkwardness.
Adam was a little confused, but then considered that maybe such a sense of humor was in keeping with Calad's rather askew personality. With a grin, he said, "On second thought, forget about trying to make them laugh. Just be yourself, Calad. You'll have a good time. I promise." Calad smiled, and Adam decided to change the subject.
"How have you been sleeping?"
Calad shrugged.
"Well, talk to me, man. How have you been getting along with your band? I mean, you know, considering..."
Calad said, "I found out Chris' birthday is coming up next month, and they said I could go in on a trip for him to Vegas."
"Oooh, Vegas! Dude, I love Vegas! Are you going with him?" Adam asked.
"No, I'm going to stay around here and keep working with Johnny. Vegas really isn't my thing, anyway."
"Too busy?" Adam asked, referring to the city's bright lights and all the people.
Calad shrugged, then nodded.
Adam wondered why it was that Calad didn't seem to want to live the rock star life, but thought he would save that question for another day.
"Well, when you get out here, I want you to know that you can stay with any one of us."
"I won't be staying at your place?" Calad confirmed. They had actually talked about it weeks ago, but it appeared Adam had changed his mind.
"Well, you see...something kind of...Actually, what I mean is, you're more than welcome to, but you may not want to."
"Why?"
"Tommy's moved in here with me. We'd love to have you, I mean, there's room and all, but I totally understand if you don't want to. Monte'll be glad to put you up, and I won't have you staying in a hotel." Adam smiled kindly.
Calad frowned. "So you and Tommy are together now?"
Adam nodded.
Calad said, "I just...I don't want to be in the way."
"You won't be in the way. I'm sitting in what would be your bedroom right now. We'd take good care of you, Calad."
The High Rocker's face brightened. His mind was eased, and he smiled. "Then I'll stay with you."
"I was hoping you would. We'll have a blast, man!"
After they ended the conversation, Adam turned off his computer and sighed. He let his mind wander for a second before something hit him. OOhhhh! I get it! 'Where's the bar...tender?!" A grin grew on Adam's face, and before he knew it, the cute, double meaning caused him to go into a fit of giggles. "Hey, Tommy!" He shouted out of the room. "I've got a joke for you!"
END OF CHAPTER 23