fic: ready for those flashing lights (5/5)
Title: Ready for those Flashing Lights (5/5)
Author: Starlight_1985
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Rating: R
Word Count: ~4,200
Disclaimer: Don’t know. Never happened. All fiction.
Notes: Hi, guys! Sorry for the delay, but here is part five. The final part! Yay! Thank you all so much for your kind words on the previous parts. As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated!
Summary: AU featuring paparazzo!Kris and celebrity!Adam.
Previous:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
/////////////
When Kris flicks the lights on in his apartment, his first urge is to flip them back off. The place is a mess: t-shirts and sneakers scattered across the living room floor; beer bottles and soda cans finding permanent residence on the kitchen counter; and CD and DVD cases flung open haphazardly, long since separated from the music and films they’d been designed to protect. If Kris would have known he’d be bringing Adam home with him, he definitely would have made an effort to clean up a little or, at the very least, made Cale pick up his dirty underwear and maybe grab a broom. It is Cale’s mess, after all.
It’s embarrassing so Kris cringes when Adam crowds up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder, gently pushing him forward so he can get through the door. Kris would be uncomfortable bringing anyone here; but the fact that it’s Adam - Adam Lambert, who must be used to five star accommodations or, at the very least, clean places - standing just inside his apartment is mortifying.
Hands fidgeting, Kris offers a timid, “So this is my place.” His eyes stay locked on Adam’s face, waiting for a reaction. When Adam’s gaze skitters past the clothing-covered carpet and filthy kitchen and focuses instead on the sea blue walls adorned with frame after frame of beach scenes: families playing in the surf; a golden retriever and its owner playing a game of fetch on the shoreline; bright purples, reds, and oranges intermingling in the sky and forming a brilliant sunset, Kris releases a breath of relief and knows that Adam is a keeper. Thank God Cale let him replace his tacky old movie posters; Kris doesn’t think Adam would appreciate western shoot outs and blood-sucking zombies.
He relaxes enough to close the door and smiles when he notices that Adam has moved to the far wall, his fingers running lightly over the wooden frame showcasing Kris’s favorite picture. It’s a little boy in blue swim trunks sitting on that slight strip of beach where tidewater meets sand, bathing it with spontaneous bursts of warm ocean water underneath the late afternoon sun. The brown-haired little boy with sun-kissed cheeks and closed eyelids is sitting with his legs sprawled out in front of him and his side to the camera. In his hands, he cradles a plastic toy guitar, his mouth open a little and pinched slightly to one side.
“It’s beautiful,” says Adam as he bends down to study the picture, his eyes absorbing every detail he finds there. “It’s like this little boy is just so into the music that he’s forgotten about everything else around him. It reminds me of how I feel when I lose myself in the rhythm of the music and the lyrics…you know?” Adam pauses, his voice wondering as he asks, “I’d give anything to know what he’s thinking about, wouldn’t you?”
Kris doesn’t hesitate. “He’s hoping that his audience is enjoying the performance,” says Kris as he reaches out a hand to point out the seashells of all different shapes and sizes that are carefully arranged into three straight lines in front of little, sand-covered, wet legs. “If I remember correctly, the audience wasn’t very vocal that day, but I like to think they enjoyed the show anyway.”
Adam’s fingers fall from the portrait. He turns to look at Kris’s face before looking back at the frozen moment in time. “You’re the little boy in the picture,” he says, voice soft and reverent.
Kris nods. “My mother took that picture on a family vacation when I was six. She had it sent to me a few weeks after I got here. I’m not sure why. I guess maybe she thought I’d need to see it sometimes? To remember how the music makes me feel?” he says.
“How does it make you feel, Kris?” asks Adam.
Grinning, Kris grabs Adam’s wrist, ignoring Adam’s raised eyebrow, and pulls him over to the couch. He flings a few stray shirts off of the cushions and encourages him to sit with a slight shove to his chest.
“Get comfortable,” he tells Adam. “Let me get us a couple of drinks and we’ll talk, yeah?” He’s not avoiding the issue. He’s away loved to talk about music, would do so for hours a day if he could, but lately he can feel the music slipping from his fingertips with each quiet day that passes. Maybe wrapping those fingers around a cold beer and talking about something other than celebrities and photographs will help delay the progression.
“I hope you have something besides beer,” Adam calls while Kris is in the kitchen.
Brows furrowed, Kris knocks a few empty bottles from the counter into the trash and opens the fridge, squinting into the bright light. “How’s vodka?” he asks.
“Perfect,” says Adam and Kris grins at the relief he can hear in Adam’s voice.
Kris mixes cola into Adam’s drink, snags a Coors Light for himself and makes his way back to the sofa, where Adam has taken Kris’s advice to heart: his arms spread wide across the back of the couch, head tipped back against the top and legs stretched out onto the coffee table in front of him. When Kris sits and hands him the glass, he grasps it between long fingers and rolls his head to smile at Kris.
“Thanks, baby,” he says and takes a slow slip, eyes closing in bliss as he swallows. “So, we were talking about your music I think.”
“What do you want to know?” Kris asks.
“What if I want you to play me something? You have your guitar here, right?” says Adam, head tilted in interest.
Kris blinks and thinks about his baby sitting neglected in the corner of his room: the old Gibson with the missing strings that has probably forgotten all about Kris and the way it feels to have Kris’s fingers caressing its body, cradling its neck and coaxing it to sing.
“It needs new strings,” says Kris, apologetically. He can see the disappointment written on Adam’s face when he sits back with a sigh and a sad “oh.”
That look doesn’t belong on Adam’s face and Kris has a sudden urge to erase it with music. He doesn’t think twice about it; he just tells Adam to hang out a minute. He’s pretty sure Cale won’t mind if he borrows his guitar for what’s left of the night. Cale barely plays it anymore, anyway. Squeezing Adam’s knee, he gets up and heads towards Cale’s room, the adrenaline building as he walks. Maybe Adam will sing for him while he plays. That would be really, really nice. For the first time in what feels like forever, Kris can’t wait to get a guitar in his arms; to feel the warmth of the familiar instrument pressed close to his chest and hear its echoing hums of pleasure as he plays; to see the warm, open smile that he knows will spread across Adam’s face; to watch Adam watching him in his own element.
Grabbing the guitar from its place underneath Cale’s bed, Kris turns and goes towards the living room, but pauses in the hallway when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, notifying him of a pending voicemail message. Guitar in one hand and phone in the other, he makes the call.
It’s a message from Dave, his voice low and controlled as he tells Kris that he’s fired. There’s no apology; no “Good try, Kris, but I think you and I both know that you’re not cut out for this job; you never were.” Instead, there’s a brief mention of knowing where to find Dave if he ever comes up with a decent shot.
Kris has hundreds of shots in his dresser drawer: pictures not just worthy of printing, but front-page, exclusive photos that magazines and blogs alike would die to get their hands on. But he’ll never give them to Dave.
Closing his phone, he leans his back against the wall and takes inventory. The firing doesn’t come as a surprise. Neither does the indifference. If anything, he feels relieved - like some invisible weight has been lifted from his shoulders and he can finally breathe again.
“Kris?” Adam calls from the living room. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” Kris answers, already moving towards the living room. And he means it. Right now he has no job and no income, but what he does have is Adam Lambert waiting for him in the next room, a guitar in his hand and the promise of spending the next few hours surrounded by music. It’s more than enough. It’s perfect.
////////////
It’s just like riding a bike. Once Kris rests his fingers against the strings and gives a cautious, preliminary strum, it’s as if the music has never left; it’s just been waiting for Kris to find it again. Everything comes back: the passion, the excitement, the burning desire to burrow underneath the sweet, floating melodies and never come out again.
He goes through his entire repertoire that night, from the Beatles to John Mayer to Kanye West and hell, even The Wizard of Oz. With each new song, Adam scoots closer, eyes wide and smile tender as he watches Kris lose himself in the chord progressions and listens to the powerfully raw voice that comes out of that little body.
It’s a wonder anyone could ever doubt that the little boy on the beach in the photograph is Kris. Even now, Kris’s mouth moves without inhibition, tilting sideways as he reaches for the high notes, the words pouring out like liquid sunshine.
When Kris gets to Man in the Mirror, he sees Adam’s mouth opening and closing rhythmically, his lips stretching to form unspoken words. So Kris nudges Adam’s foot with his own and nods encouragingly and that’s all it takes. Suddenly, the apartment is alive: music flowing through the walls, song dripping from every corner.
He doesn’t know what gets into him, but when he tires of the cover songs, Kris scrambles for his notebook, ready to share ideas and emotions that have never seen a world outside of lines on paper. He sings Adam songs about heart ache and betrayal with his eyes closed; but when he sings Adam songs about love and longing, his eyes stay open, his gaze locked on the brilliant blues and greys swirling in harmony in Adam’s eyes.
“Amazing,” Adam breathes when Kris’s last note has faded into obscurity and Cale’s guitar is resting against the arm of the couch. “You should always have a guitar in your hands, Kris,” he says. “It’s what you were born to do.”
Before Kris can offer a reply, Adam’s fingers are skimming down his throat, coming to a slow rest right over his vocal chords as his mouth moves dangerously close to the corner of Kris’s mouth. “Your voice is beautiful,” he whispers and Kris feels the cool bursts of air ghost over his lips just before Adam captures his top lip between his own and sucks a slow, gentle kiss onto the bow of his mouth.
“Thank you for sharing your music with me,” Adam says when their mouths part and eyes flicker open.
Kris thinks that he should be the one thanking Adam: for listening; for giving him the confidence to be himself; for helping him find the missing parts of the puzzle and piece them together again.
But he circles his arms around Adam’s waist and hides his face in Adam’s neck instead, hoping that Adam will hear the unspoken gratitude in the soft sigh that tickles his skin and the small smile that presses against his collar bone.
////////////
Later, when they’ve abandoned the couch in favor of the floor, sprawled on the beige carpet with Kris’s head pillowed high on Adam’s thigh and Adam’s hand sliding back and forth through Kris’s hair, Adam asks about Cale.
Kris brushes his nose against Adam’s leg and sighs. “I love him,” he tells Adam, “but I just don’t understand the guy sometimes. He’s been my best friend forever and we’ve been through pretty much everything together, but I don’t think I like who he’s becoming.”
“Hollywood will do that to some people,” says Adam, brushing his fingers across Kris’s forehead and smoothing away the lines of concern. “You’re one of the strong ones though, honey. Not everyone is like you. You don’t let your job control who you are as a person.”
“Don’t have to worry about that anymore,” murmurs Kris, relaxing into Adam’s warmth. “Dave fired me.”
Adam’s hand finds Kris’s chin, tilting his head up so he can see his eyes. “Seriously?” he asks, searching Kris’s face for the truth. “Kris…”
“I’ll be okay,” says Kris. “Don’t worry about me.”
“But I do,” Adam says, so tenderly that Kris presses a quick kiss to Adam’s wandering fingers and turns to rest his chin on Adam’s chest.
“I worry about you, too,” he smiles, and then: “Tell me what happened with you and Mark tonight. You guys were fighting…” he prompts.
The silence is deafening and Kris worries his bottom lip with his teeth, waiting to see if Adam will let him in or try to brush it off.
“I told him what you said,” says Adam, finally, his voice breaking a little as he continues. “About loving me even when I’m not there and waiting for me to come home?”
“And?” Kris asks.
“He said that it’s not fair for me to change my mind. He likes how our arrangement is working out,” Adam says.
Kris brushes a piece of black hair back behind Adam’s ear. “Yeah, it’s working out great for him, but what about you?”
“It’s the first relationship I’ve had in years that has lasted longer than two months,” Adam dodges.
“But can you really call what you have with Mark a relationship?” Kris frowns. “I thought a relationship was all about give and take; building one another up instead of tearing one another down?” He brings both hands up to frame Adam’s face, forcing Adam to look down at him. “I don’t know much about Mark other than what you’ve told me, but it seems to me like you’re doing all of the giving and he’s doing all of the taking,” he finishes.
“That’s actually a pretty good way to describe it,” says Adam, tearing his gaze away from Kris’s face to look at the ceiling, where Kris knows he’s seeing the tiny glow-in-the-dark stars the previous owners had stuck there; their edges peeling, color fading and material crackling, but still clinging to life despite their hardships.
“Adam,” Kris whispers and smiles when Adam meets his eyes. “I’d give you anything,” he says. He pulls himself up Adam’s body so his lips sweep across Adam’s cheekbone and his nose brushes against the slope of Adam’s nose. “I’d give you everything,” he sighs.
When Adam turns his head and reaches blindly for Kris’s mouth, it feels different from the few kisses they’ve shared before. Those kisses were born from lust and frenzied bursts of passion, emotions swept under the rug and reason ignored. This kiss is slow and thorough, lips and tongues meeting with deliberate purpose; mouths merging and sliding against foreheads, along throats and behind earlobes, leaving warm trails of moisture in their wake.
“Dump Mark,” Kris begs, his lips red, kiss swollen and still puckered, even though their mouths have parted for air. “Please, Adam. You have to dump Mark.” He shuts his eyes, terrified that Adam is going to pull away from him again when reminded of his boyfriend, but he keeps his arms stubbornly locked around Adam’s neck because he’s not letting Adam go so easily this time.
It turns out that Kris doesn’t have anything to fear.
“Fuck, Kris. Mark, who?” groans Adam. He places his hands low on Kris’s waist, squeezing his hips and rolling so that Kris ends up squirming underneath of his weight as their bodies align in all of the right places. Adam steadies himself on his elbows above Kris and drags his erection against the hardness in Kris’s jeans, eyes closing in pleasure as his mouth finds the shell of Kris’s ear to whisper, “I will. I promise. I will.”
He seals his promise low on Kris’s neck with teeth and tongue. Kris groans his approval.
////////////
A bruised elbow from a run-in with a door frame and a small bump on the back of his head from a collision against the hallway way are small prices to pay to get Adam into his bedroom and underneath his sheets, where he belongs.
Kris doesn’t remember much about the transition. He remembers locking his legs around Adam’s waist when Adam lifted him from the living floor with two big hands underneath of his ass, and he remembers banging into hard walls and knocking pictures askew when Adam stopped every few seconds to throw him against the wall and grind their cocks together while he tongue-fucked Kris’s mouth.
He also has a vague recollection of Adam pausing just inside his bedroom door with his eyes locked on the picture of his own leather-clad ass dangling from a pushpin on Kris’s bulletin board and a smirk playing on his lips. Kris had allowed him a few seconds to gloat before covering Adam’s grin with his mouth and pushing him back towards his bed.
Once there, they make their own music: groans and whimpers - their song; hands, fingers and mouths - their instruments. And - when Adam finally pushes into Kris, his hands running soothingly over Kris’s breastbone and upwards to fist in soft, brown hair; his hips moving to the rhythm of their quick, stuttered breaths - it’s more than Kris ever allowed himself to imagine. It’s ecstasy.
Later, when the sweat has dried on their bodies, Kris nestles into Adam’s side with one arm thrown across Adam’s freckled chest and his head tucked underneath of Adam’s chin. He draws circles around Adam’s pebbled nipples, following the rings of small brown dots with a callused fingertip.
“Play the guitar for me,” Adam breathes against the top of his head.
“I already did,” says Kris, grinning when Adam’s laughter causes his cheek to move up and down from its resting place between Adam’s shoulder and neck.
“I mean in my band,” Adam says and puts a hand over Kris’s mouth to thwart any objections. “You’re a brilliant artist, Kris. I haven’t told anyone yet, but Monte’s leaving. He’s going to help with Madonna’s comeback tour. So I need someone. And I know Tommy will love you. Please, Kris. Say yes. I have to have you.”
“I thought you already had me?” Kris teases. But he doesn’t say no.
/////////////
Kris wakes up the next morning with warm sunlight trickling in from the window and the lingering scent of Dior Homme tickling his nose. It’s the second time this morning that he’s turning over in bed, face-planting with a happy sigh into the now abandoned pillow, tiny flecks of multicolored glitter and stray lines of dark grey eye shadow smudged into the white cotton pillowcase.
The first time he’d woken it was to the feel of short, sweet kisses peppering his neck, wet lips sliding along the curve of his jaw and a warm tongue parting his mouth to tangle with his own.
“I need to go. I have to talk to Mark,” Adam had whispered, his lips brushing Kris’s as he spoke.
“But…”
“I need to tell him that it’s over,” Adam had murmured. “Trust me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Kris had nodded anyway because he did.
So, after Adam had gotten dressed and had written his number down in eyeliner on a used package of lube, Kris had pulled him back to the bed to taste those lips one more time, his mouth telling Adam that he trusted him enough to let him go and his body reminding Adam of what he had to look forward to when he returned.
////////////
Something is wrong.
When Kris returns from his morning jog to find his top dresser drawer open, socks and boxer shorts spilling messily over the sides, his heart plummets to his feet and he knows - he knows - that the film is gone.
He takes a cursory glance around the rest of the room, finding the rest of the drawers untouched and his wallet still resting undisturbed on the nightstand. Whoever was in his room had a clear mission: they knew what they were looking for and they knew exactly where to find it.
Kris fumbles for his cell phone, his mind racing. How much time does he have before the film is developed and sold? Which tabloid is most likely to pay top-dollar for the shots? What did Adam say he was doing today after he talked to Mark? God, Adam. He has to warn him. He has to make him understand that -
“I almost did it,” says a male voice from the doorway.
Kris turns, bedroom walls blurring as if everything has been reduced to slow motion. His eyes land on Cale.
Cale’s face is red and his head lowered, eyes darting everywhere except for Kris’s face. “I was going to do it. I had everything all planned out after I got your text last night. I’d stay away and come back this morning when I knew you’d be out running, and I’d grab the film and run it up to Dave before you even got back. When Dave asked me where the shots came from, I’d tell him that they were mine, that I took them and was saving them for the right time,” says Cale.
“But you didn’t?” Kris asks, coming closer.
Wordlessly, Cale holds out his hands to show Kris the shiny black tubes housing the missing film. “I was so angry at you for ruining your life, Kris. For keeping things from me,” explains Cale, his voice softening as he continues, “For moving on and finding something better than this life. God, Kris. What happened to me? When did I become the guy that no one wants to be around? The guy who would sell out other people - my best friend - for money?
“You didn’t, though,” says Kris. He bumps his shoulder into Cale. “That says a lot.”
“Yeah?” asks Cale.
“Definitely. Hey, what do you say we grab some lunch today and get caught up? Shoot the breeze like we used to?”
“I’d say we’re long overdue,” says Cale. He holds the tubes out to Kris and Kris takes them, turning to put them back in his top drawer. He doesn’t even think about looking for a new hiding place.
“Just do me one favor?” asks Kris as he grabs his wallet.
“Anything.”
“Leave the camera at home.”
Cale answers with a grin.
//////////////
Cale isn’t a bad guy; he just got caught up in the thrill of the chase and the shiny façade of Hollywood, California. Kris knows that. So when Cale offers to make amends a few weeks later by throwing Kris the birthday party to end all birthday parties, Kris doesn’t have the heart to turn him down, even though he still kind of hates Hollywood parties.
“I think you’ll like this one,” grins Cale, leading him through the doors.
There are a lot of people there - some familiar faces, most not. Kris thinks he should probably be offended at the overuse of plaid (both for decoration and wardrobe purposes) and the rainbow-colored banner proclaiming: “Happy Birthday to Kris Allen: An old shit who likes his plaid, never gets mad and dates Adam Lambert: How Rad!” but he can’t bring himself to care because Cale guides him to Adam, who has paired well worn, low slung jeans with a blue and green plaid button down shirt, and who is holding a shiny new Gibson with a huge, sparkling red bow decorating its neck.
“Happy birthday, baby,” says Adam, pushing the guitar into Kris’s hands.
Kris’s mouth falls open. No one has ever put so much thought into his birthday gift. He’s never felt so loved. Speechless, he gives the guitar to Danielle with trembling hands and leans up to wrap his arms around Adam’s neck, pulling him down so he can fit their mouths together.
He sees a burst of light from behind his closed eyelids and sighs, turning to look at Cale.
“I thought we agreed on no pictures?” he asks, shooting a look at Adam when he hears him snicker.
“Just a little something to help you remember tonight,” says Cale. “It’s all yours, I promise. Well, if the price is right, of course. I saw tongue, man! Shots like that don’t come cheap.”
Kris shoots him the bird and ignores Danielle’s laughter as he melts back into Adam. From his place against Adam’s chest, it’s easy to hear Danielle and Cale’s next words.
“Aren’t they adorable,” coos Danielle.
“They’re something alright,” agrees Cale. “Just wait until they get on that stage together. Then people will really talk.”
Kris is all for giving people something to talk about. He has a sneaking suspicion that Adam feels the same way.
////////////