Drive You 'til You Feel the Daylight: Four
Tommy's wrists are bruised and tender the next day.
It's too hot for long sleeves, so he rummages through the pile of fan gifts until he finds a pair of studded cuffs that cover the damage fairly well. They're a little dressier than the rest of his outfit, but it's a day off, and he doesn't plan on posing for photos or anything. Sutan's careful vigilance paid off, though, and his hands aren't stiff or sore, he's having no trouble moving.
The cuffs press down on the bruises they're hiding, not painful, just so he's aware of the soreness. He can't help fiddling with them, all through the lunch they're having at a fancy restaurant, twisting and pressing and unsnapping them, restless. Finally Terrance, sitting next to him, reaches over under the table and puts his hand lightly on Tommy's wrist, over the cuff, meets Tommy's eyes with a little smile. Tommy heaves in a breath, holds it, exhales. He nods at Terrance, embarrassed, settles his hands in his lap. He manages to get through the rest of lunch without obsessing, and Immerman grabs him as they're leaving.
"Hey," he says, not quite meeting Tommy's eyes. "You got some time to talk?"
Tommy can't help the instinctive glance around; he catches Adam's eye and makes some kind of gesture. Adam seems to understand though, just grins and taps his watch: they have plans later, don't be too long.
They're walking distance from the hotel, so there's no car or anything to worry about, and he and Dave detach from the group and wander until they find a park, with trees and benches and a weird sculpture that they sit under. Dave still won't look at him, stares down at his hands instead, and Tommy fiddles with his cuffs and waits.
"Liz explained it to me," says Dave eventually. "Uh. I think she did, anyway."
Tommy nods; he doesn't doubt Liz was needlessly detailed in her explaining.
"So its true?" Dave presses. "You're sleeping with everybody?"
"No!" says Tommy, then pauses. "I'm sleeping with a lot of people. Not even that, really, I'm just. I'm helping them, okay? It's stress relief. I'm not dating everyone at once, that's a dick move."
"You're just letting them fuck you," snaps Dave, and stands up, starts to pace.
And the thing is, Tommy likes Dave, he really does. They get along amazingly, love the same music, the same movies, hang out all the time and jam. He's never fooled around with Dave simply because it's never come up, Dave's never indicated interest and there's never been a good time to offer.
"Why are you mad about this?" says Tommy quietly. The park is mostly empty, but he doesn't like having fights in public, if that's what this is.
"Why am I - Jesus." Dave stares at him for the first time today. "Are you kidding? I like you, Tommy."
Tommy actually flinches a little, and hates himself for it. "What."
Dave drops down next to him again, covers his eyes. "I was going to ask you out or something, months ago at the start of tour, thought maybe we could take care of each other, you know? Helping hand or some shit, on the road. But you were fucking straight. Everybody fucking knew it, Adam Lambert's pet straight boy, the tease of the fucking millennium. He'll kiss you like he means it, but don't be fucking fooled."
Tommy turns his face away. "Fuck. Dave."
"And now I find out, not only are you not fucking straight, you're banging everything on tour that isn't me."
Tommy presses his head between his hands. "You've got it wrong," he says in a small voice. "You're - Dave, if you'd asked, it could have been you too. I would've." He can see it in his mind's eye, jam sessions followed by lazy stoned blowjobs, making out and horror movies, never mind that's not anything like what he's doing with anyone else.
"I didn't know I could ask," says Dave. He sounds tired. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be taking this out on you. Just, last night, I thought you were kidding, I thought somebody was going to shout surprise, you know? Great joke, very funny. But they fucking tied you to the bed, I saw, and you - god, everyone acted like it was the most normal thing ever, have a drink, pass round a joint, use Tommy as a sex doll."
"That was the first time," says Tommy. "Before, it was something I did with Liz, something I did with Taylor. It wasn't, like, a group activity."
"The fact that you're sleeping with enough people to qualify for a football team," Dave starts, and Tommy's on his feet before he realises it, walking away.
For some reason, he expects Dave to come after him, but when he dares a look over his shoulder, Dave's just sitting there, under the ugly sculpture, too far away for Tommy to make out his expression.
He takes the long way back to the hotel, to clear his head and slow his pounding heart. He almost calls Liz, almost calls Sutan, rips off the cuffs in a pique and nearly tosses them out, shoves them in his pocket instead and finds a Taco Bell, even though he just had lunch an hour ago. The girl on the register takes his order without looking away from the screen and sure as hell doesn't notice his bruised arms, and that pisses him off as well, for some reason - he's displaying his perversity to the world, the least the world could do is fucking notice.
He tosses out his taco after two bites, heads back towards the hotel with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He's shaking, not sure whether to be mad or upset or what.
He thinks he should go talk to Sutan, probably. Sutan will have words for this, for what he feels, Sutan will talk to him in that clearheaded way and make him tea and hug him. Sutan will tell him that whatever he's feeling is okay to feel.
How he ends up knocking on Adam's door is a mystery.
"Hey," says Adam, then stops when he gets a good look at him. "Oh, Tommy. What happened?"
Tommy shrugs awkwardly. "Nothing. I was just talking to Dave. They're fucking leaving tomorrow, you know?" So he's probably never going to get a chance to make things right with Dave, now, not really.
"Aw, I know," says Adam, and reels Tommy in for a hug. "I know you've gotten close with them, too. I wish I could take them with us."
They'd talked about it, early in the tour, when it became obvious that they were taking it international. It's impossible for a lot of reasons. Tommy shakes his head. "Can I hide in here for the afternoon? I need some decompress time."
"Of course," says Adam straightaway. "I mean, I'm planning on holing up with True Blood, if you don't mind the company."
The fact that Adam's essentially asking permission to hang out in his own room makes Tommy want to hit something. "Of course it is. I'm not hiding from you."
Sutan texts while they're debating the merits of room service popcorn and bacon with syrup. You okay? Liz worried. Im worried.
All good. With Adam, don't wait up, he replies while Adam's on the phone, negotiating for bacon with low-fat syrup. Then he puts his phone on silent and drops it over the edge of the bed.
"I'm totally allowed to make incomprehensible demands, right?" says Adam, setting the phone back in its cradle. "I'm pretty sure that's part of my job."
"Sure," says Tommy. "Nobody'll think you're weird or bitchy or high-maintenance or anything."
Adam scoffs and pokes him playfully, and Tommy pokes him back, and when the room service arrives they're in the middle of an epic thumb war. Adam swears Tommy's cheating somehow; but Tommy just rolls his eyes and points out that he's a fucking bass player, his job is to have strong hands.
It's only once they've settled down to watch the DVDs, eaten half a bowl of popcorn, theorised on how vampires can have sex when they don't have blood pressure, and thrown some cushions at the TV, that Tommy realises he didn't put the cuffs back on and the marks ringing his arms are not only visible, but impossible to miss. Adam has to have seen them. They're hidden now, tucked into Tommy's sides as he leans against the pillows, but they were thumb wrestling, Adam was staring right at them, theres no way he didn't see it.
When the episode ends, Tommy excuses himself to the bathroom. He thinks he's going to be sick, but instead he just grips the sides of the basin and stares into it, willing his breathing under control. So Adam saw the bruises, so what? Adam hasn't said anything. Maybe he won't. Maybe having obviously bondage-inflicted marks on your body is not a big deal in Adam's world, not even worthy of comment.
He puts the cuffs back on before he leaves the bathroom, fumbles them out of his pocket and snaps them over the bruises. He doesn't care if Adam notices the change, he needs it covered up.
Adam is fiddling with his phone when Tommy emerges, looks up with a smile. "Hey. Ready for the next episode?" If he notices Tommy's accessories, he doesn't say, doesn't even look. Grateful, Tommy crawls onto the bed and flops down beside him, and Adam puts his hand on Tommy's head and leaves it there as he presses play.
He falls asleep pretty fast, he thinks, he sure doesn't remember any of the episode after the opening credits. When he wakes, the room is dim, though some light is creeping around the edges of the drawn curtains, and Adam is sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to Tommy, talking quietly on his phone.
"No, he's fine," says Adam softly. Maybe it was Adam's ringtone that woke him, or the sound of Adam's voice. "He just seems kind of tired, said he needed to decompress."
Adam listens then, and Tommy lies very still, eyes slitted shut. "No, he didn't say anything. He's just - Sutan, is there something you're not telling me?" Another pause. "Fine, I will. I don't think we're going to make it for dinner." He hits disconnect and puts the phone with deliberate care on the nightstand. Tommy feigns sleep as Adam turns to him, Adams breathing over the soft repeating whine of the music on the DVD menu.
He almost gives himself away when Adam touches him, the faintest brush of fingers on his arm where its curled against his chest. Adam traces the edge of the cuff with his fingertips, and Tommy has to concentrate on keeping his breathing steady and even, even when Adam takes his wrist in a very light, careful grip and lies down beside him.
He slips back into sleep like that.
&&&&&
It's properly dark when he wakes again, and he's tucked under Adam's arm with his face pressed into Adam's ribs. It's a really nice way to wake up, so he doesn't bother moving for a while, just enjoys the comfort of Adam's undemanding presence, the warmth of his body. Adam's still sleeping, his breathing deep and even. He doesn't stir when Tommy eventually wiggles out from his grasp, but Tommy just reaches over the edge of the bed to snag his phone from the floor and rolls back into the warmth of him.
He's got a couple of text messages and a bunch of missed calls, little icons blinking on the screen. With a flick of his thumb he scrolls through them - from Sutan and Terrance, checking in, from Sasha and Liz, wanting to play, from Dave. He skips that one without reading it, checks his twitter replies and then opens up some mindless game that involves popping brightly-colored bubbles, which he plays until the screen is an inch from his nose and his eyes hurt, which is when Adam wakes up.
"Mfffm. What're you doing?"
"Entertaining myself," says Tommy softly. "Didn't want to wake you." He startles a little as Adam rolls onto his side so he's almost covering Tommy, arm around him, leg across his, sleep-warm and heavy. He sort of nuzzles into Tommy's hair, and Tommy relaxes, let's himself be held. Adam's so relaxed, and he's not asking anything of Tommy but his presence, and it's calming, to have to do nothing more than lie in Adam's arms, half-asleep and protected.
"You gonna tell me what happened to your wrists?" asks Adam, eventually. His voice is blurry with sleep, and he sounds as if he doesn't much mind what the answer is.
"No," says Tommy, trying not to get tense and defensive. "Nothing bad. We were playing a game."
"Okay," says Adam, easily. "You want to get some dinner? I feel like Chinese." And just like that, the topic is dropped.
He spends the rest of the evening in Adam's room. The afternoon has gone so fast, with sleeping and lazing about, but Tommy is feeling bright-eyed and rested, so they eat, and Adam takes a shower while Tommy ducks back to his room for his acoustic guitar, and they sit around for a couple of hours playing with melody and lyrics. They've got nothing workable by the end of it, but its a nice way to unwind and fill a few hours, music and a friend, no place to be, nothing to do.
"We should sleep," says Adam around midnight. "Early bus call."
"I had, like, a four-hour nap," says Tommy. "I couldn't sleep now if you drugged me unconscious."
"We have to be up in five hours," says Adam, looking mournful. "We didn't think this through."
They compromise by going to bed anyway; MTV going quietly in the background as they curl up under the sheet, facing one another, holding one of those rambling, over-tired late-night conversations Tommy knows he won't remember in the morning. Some how Adam's hand is on his waist, through the covers, and their feet are tangled together, Adam's leg hair rubbing the wrong way against his calves. And then Adam is close, so close, their foreheads pressed together, sharing breath.
"Tommy," Adam murmurs.
"Mmm," says Tommy. Against all the odds, he's sleepy again, his eyes drooping.
Adam tilts his head so his lips brush Tommy's. "Hm? Nothing," he says. "G'night."
&&&&&
Tommy somehow manages to get up, back to his own room, dressed, showered, packed, and down to the buses without ever actually waking up. He comes abruptly back to himself curled up on the bus couch with Cam staring at him, an expression of profound amusement on her face.
"You're fucking adorable before coffee," she says.
"Fuck you," says Tommy, voice rough with sleep. "If you have coffee you're keeping from me, I'm going to. You know. Be upset and stuff."
Cam grins and hands over a cup of coffee, and Tommy pulls his knees to his chest and nurses it greedily. He's not an addict or anything, but without that kick-start in the morning everything's a little bit harder.
"How you holding up?" Cam asks, and the question isn't as idle as it seems.
"Okay," says Tommy. "Sorry I missed you the other night."
Cam wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. "No, I'm not into the whole, you know, group thing. I just meant, um. You weren't around much yesterday? I think Sutan was worried. He kept checking his phone."
"I was hanging out with Adam," says Tommy. That's not weird, is it? Except, oh. "So I didn't see any of you for the whole day."
So he's gone twenty-four hours without getting on his knees for anyone. Been a while since that's happened. "Oh, and I missed seeing off Alli and her crew this morning, shit."
"Yeah, but that's okay, none of us did," says Cam. "It was four-thirty in the morning, they weren't up yet. They're not leaving until later." She touches his hand. "I meant, how are you?"
Tempting as it is to blow her off with a fine answer, Tommy does her the courtesy of actually considering it. "I'm - okay, I think? I've got some stuff to think about, and I'll probably need some advice at some point. But I'm not, like, traumatised."
"Okay," she says calmly. "You let me know if you need anything."
He gets a lot of offers like that throughout the day. The band bus feels empty without Alli's crew there, and the dancers are still over on Adam's bus, so he's mostly just got Cam, because Isaac is finding it hard to meet his eyes without blushing. But when they stop briefly around mid-morning, Sasha and Taylor switch buses under the pretence of a sudden desperate need for Tommy's horror movie collection, but really to cuddle with him on the couch and bring him things and make sure he's okay.
Nobody asks him for anything.
"Are you cockblocking me, you bitch?" Tommy demands of Sutan after the show.
Sutan looks up from where he's packing away his brushes carefully. "Does it count as cockblocking if you're never actually getting off either way?" he asks mildly, and Tommy very pointedly does not throw a shoe at him.
After a moment, Sutan shakes his head. "I didn't say anything, but everyone agreed to step back and give you a couple of days," he said. "I think some people were taken by surprise the other night."
Tommy frowns, a tense knot forming in his stomach. "Surprised by what?"
"By how far you'd go," says Sutan carefully. "Breathe, honey." He crosses the room and puts a cool hand on Tommy's neck, soothing.
"Sorry," says Tommy, exhaling through his nostrils. "Sorry sorry sorry."
"Oh," says Sutan, and he puts an arm around Tommy and hugs him. "I guess you were a bit surprised, too?"
Tommy nods. "Never done anything like that before."
Sutan hums thoughtfully. "I know. You did amazingly, though."
"I liked it," Tommy says, fast. "Not the group thing. But, um. With the ropes. And you being in charge. I liked that."
"Yeah," says Sutan. "Okay, you and me have to talk. Come find me at the hotel, okay?"
So when the bus has taken them to the hotel and Lane has given out strict instructions for what time they're leaving and handed out the keycards and everybody's hauled all their shit upstairs and said goodnight, Tommy puts on his comfiest PJ bottoms and a hoody and pads barefoot down the prickly-carpet hallway to Sutan's room.
What follows is absolutely the weirdest birds and the bees talk he's ever had in his life. Its weirder than the one his mom gave him when he was eight, which left him with the impression that penguins could impregnate pandas by blowing pollen at them, and its definitely weirder than the talk from his dad when he'd caught Tommy, age fifteen and a half, with a girl - that one had mostly been stuttering and Dad shoving condoms at him.
Sutan, on the other hand, sits him down in an armchair and gives him tea and then starts talking in a calm, direct way about boundaries and safety and consent, about bondage and power play and subspace and pain and Tommy makes a helpless, high-pitched noise and thinks about the girl who does his piercings, back in Burbank, who teases him gently every time about the way his pupils dilate and he gets all trembly when she puts the needle in but lets him lie on the bench until he feels less like his brain is full of clouds.
"I don't know," Tommy croaks, and then Sutan's right there again, rubbing his back. "I don't fucking know, any of this, I can't right now."
"Okay, okay," says Sutan. "I'm sorry. Too much?"
"Just," says Tommy. "Uh. Cliff notes?"
Sutan chuckles, rich and warm. "Okay. You're not a freak or a weirdo for wanting this or liking it. There are no bad kinks, though there are dangerous and bad ways to indulge them. With me so far?"
"Got it," says Tommy. "Bad and dangerous how?"
So Sutan talks him through safety shit and the different ways it can get fucked up, and over and over he keeps saying how anyone can make it stop if they feel unsafe or scared, even if they're tied up or being punished or not supposed to talk or anything like that. He stresses the importance of safewords, and safety measures, and how its the person looking after Tommy's responsibility to make sure Tommy's okay no matter what's going on or what scene they're playing, and Tommy presses his fingers to his temples and blushes and blushes.
"God, why do people do this, then?" he blurts, and Sutan gets all quiet and thoughtful and Tommys a bit afraid he's going to say You're right, this is a dumb idea.
Except he just kind of chews his lip and says, "Because it's amazing," says Sutan. "It's the most intense thing, from either side of it, you know? To get that close to the edge with someone you really trust. There's nothing like it." He smiles and brushes Tommy's hair back, fondly. "Oh, you're going to make some bastard so lucky, Tommy Joe. Whoever gets to give that to you better fucking deserve it."
&&&&&
The first day on the Europe leg, Sasha and Terrance have a fight. Or an argument. Whatever it is leaves them sulking in opposite ends of the bus as Taylor goes back and forth from one to the other, looking worried, like a little kid trying to make Mom and Dad not mad anymore. Tommy finally intercepts him and pulls him into a bunk, yanking the curtain shut and pinning Taylor down with the weight of his body until the other boy is less agitated.
"It's not your job," he murmurs into Taylor's ear. "Just let them ride it out, it's okay, baby."
Taylor exhales noisily, because Tommy's hand is down the front of his shorts, jerking him off nice and slow. There is only a curtain between them and the rest of the bus, and even though everybody else on the bus except Tony, the driver, knows exactly what is going on and will probably be waiting their turn, Taylor's trying so hard to be quiet. Tommy kind of wants to make him yell, but that's mean, because Taylor gets embarrassed easily, and this is meant to make Taylor feel good, not freak him out.
Taylor buries his face in Tommy's neck and his hips start to rock up and then Adam says, "Hey guys, what're we watching?" about three feet away from the bunk and they both freeze. Tommy completely forgot that Adam was on their bus now, squirreled away in his room upstairs thinking rock star thoughts quietly, and now he's come out, and Tommy can see his shadow against the curtain separating them.
"Top Model," says Sasha at the same time as Terrance says "Californication," and even though the curtain's shut Tommy can tell they're glaring at each other.
"Aw, guys," says Adam. "Come on, don't fight. We got hours and hours on this bus. Plenty of time to watch both."
Tommy misses what happen next, because Taylor moves again, pushes his hips up into Tommy's hand. He smiles a little, pets Taylor's hair with his free hand.
"You'll have to be quiet," he breathes. "Adam doesn't know. Can you stay quiet enough?"
Taylor's breathing goes choppy when Tommy squeezes, and he nods, his floppy hair tickling against Tommy's neck. "Please," he whispers, and his voice cracks into the softest little whimper.
"Shhh," Tommy soothes, and shifts his weight so he can get a hand over Taylor's mouth. "I'll get you there."
Out in the main area of the bus, the volume of the TV goes up, Sasha or Terrance covering for them. Taylor squirms under him, breathing shallow and short, but he's so good, doesn't make a peep, all his need and gratitude in the way his body arches under Tommy, the clench of his hands in Tommy's shirt, the gleam of his dark eyes in the dim bunk.
Taylor's docile after, curls up against Tommy and naps. He's a pleasant warm weight against Tommy's ribs, trustingly limp, and Tommy lets himself nod off as well, the hum of the road under and the murmur of the television carrying him along half-aware.
&&&&&
Tommy hasn't slept alone since they left the US.
He's sure - pretty sure, anyway - that it isn't exactly deliberate, not really planned. It's not even a sex thing, really - like, yeah, he blows Terrance before he passes out on his shoulder, but it's more of a hey-how's-it-going-gimme-a-cuddle thing than a sex thing, and it's been a long day and his bed is so far away.
And okay, yes, the night he spends in Brooke's bed is pretty damn raunchy, eating her out for what feels like hours with her fiance on speakerphone, giving instruction, murmuring encouragement, while Brooke swears and trembles and goes gradually, steadily to pieces - and it's not exactly like she's gonna kick him out of bed after that, is it?
But he falls asleep on Isaac halfway through a conversation about shoes, of all things, and wakes up with his nose shoved in the smaller man's armpit, fully dressed, and even though he jerks Isaac off in the shower later, something about it makes him feel off-balance. Even more when, after a show, he heads back to Sutan's room and they drink wine and Sutan cuddles him and pets him and they go to sleep, Sutan's arm heavy over his chest, holding him in place.
Master Post
Girls Boys Everyone Aftermath Adam Tommy