ficlet: shades of blue
Title: Shades of Blue (Ficlet)
Author: Starlight_1985
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Rating: G
Word Count: ~1,550
Disclaimer: Don’t know. Never happened. All fiction.
Notes: I’m not really sure where this one came from. I think I’ll just chalk it up to my fascination with colors and imagery as of late. As always, comments and feedback are much appreciated!
Summary: The American Idol Tour has ended and Kris thinks of Adam in shades of blue.
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It has only been a month since the American Idol Tour ended - just a mere thirty days since he had hugged Adam goodbye, buried his face into the hard planes of Adam’s chest and felt the warmth of Adam’s arms locking around his back, the slight sting of Adam’s black fingernails biting desperately into his shoulder blades, pulling him in closer and closer, as if Adam could blend their two bodies together from the sheer force and proximity of the hug; only four weeks since he had last heard Adam’s soft voice in his ear, Adam’s lips brushing gently against the outer shell and Adam’s breath ghosting over his cheek as he whispered words meant to pacify, soothe and reassure - but it feels like forever. They had been on the same journey for so long - sharing rooms, jokes, friends and fans - that it had been difficult to imagine embarking on a new journey that they could call their own. Sure, they will ultimately arrive at the same destination - both will undoubtedly have successful albums vying for dominance at the top of the Billboard charts - but the vehicles they will use and the experiences they will have will remain their own. Their paths will inevitably cross - that much is sure - but the environments will change. They’ll no longer run into each other in the mansion’s kitchen in the middle of the night, barefoot and pajama-clad, smirking at each other as they rummage through the high cabinets and pantries for Allison’s secret stash of hidden sweets. They’ll no longer meet in the tiny hallway separating the right side of bunks from the left side in the bus, blinking sleep out of their eyes and smoothing tired hands down their cheeks where the red creases from their pillowcases still show. Kris will no longer get to see Adam’s naked, freckled face hours before a performance, or witness the full-on, unguarded, brilliantly unabashed smile Adam bestowed on the other contestants over cups of steaming hot coffee and cans of ice cold Red Bull in the early morning hours. Kris will not have the opportunity to sit beside Adam on the threadbare couches in the backstage dressing rooms, his fingers restlessly picking at the strings of his guitar as Adam texts friends on his BlackBerry, having already told everyone that he’s saving his voice for the show that night, but unable to stop his lips from parting and quietly singing the lyrics to whatever melodies come from Kris’ fingertips.
It’s a different ballgame now and Kris knows that, but the knowledge doesn’t make it any easier and it certainly doesn’t make him miss Adam any less. He sees Adam in almost everything around him now - a realization that both comforts and saddens him and, at times, makes him a little fearful for his own sanity.
Ever since the two first met in the Hollywood auditions, Kris has always associated Adam with the color blue. It may not have been the obvious color one would have chosen to connect to the tall, raven-haired, nail polish-wearing, eyeliner-enhanced, leather-loving “rock god.” Looking back on it now, Kris supposes that black may have been the more appropriate, albeit cliché, hue to describe Adam; but Kris has always had a penchant for going against the grain of conformity and traditionalism, so he’s comfortable with the blue. He’s not entirely sure how the association began - it may have been the few strands of bright blue highlights in Adam’s hair, intensely vivid against the wealth of stark black, that sparkled and shined under the harsh spotlights of the stage or that glistened and gleamed under the intimate dimmers of the lounge on the bus; or it could have been the dark blue nail polish that Adam had donned from the very beginning, and the way Adam had picked at his nails when he was nervous on elimination nights, leaving microscopic shards of blue paint all over his bedazzled pants and sending shreds of flaking polish into the fabric of Kris’ plaid shirt when he pulled Kris into one of his famous hugs. No, Kris doesn’t know how the association began, but he does know that it doesn’t stop with the end of the Idol run.
Now, in the days he spends apart from Adam, he sees him in the strangest of places and things. Like Adam himself, the blues are ever-changing and surprising; they are not content to remain stagnant in their shades or their vibrancy. Whatever the tint, whatever the tone - Kris sees the color and thinks of Adam. When Katy insists that they take a day trip to Venice Beach to see how the temperature of the water and the feel of the sand between their toes compare to the beaches on the East Coast, Kris watches the sun reflect off of the ocean, creating tiny diamonds of light on the surface of the aquamarine water, listens to the ebb and flow of the waves as they crash to the shore, and thinks of Adam’s voice, strong and powerful, even amidst walls of opposition. When he goes shopping at the local mall, strides to the wall of jeans, and actually finds himself contemplating the fine difference between dark-wash and light-wash denim, he thinks of Adam’s fondness for tight, skinny-legged pants and large belt buckles. When he passes by each one of the twenty-three royal blue mailboxes lining the streets on his way from his house to the studio, he remembers Adam insisting on reading each and every piece of fan mail he received, and insanely wonders how many mailboxes Adam passes during the course of his day. When he sees his niece eating a blueberry lollipop - the dark navy color of the candy in sharp contrast against the white of the stick - he thinks of Adam’s aversion to exotic fruits. Give the man a coconut or mango and he’ll raise one eyebrow at you in confusion and tell you that he much prefers the fruits in their liquid form: slushy alcoholic concoctions that he cannot get enough of; but give him a banana and he’ll smile devilishly at you, unpeel it slowly, and bring it to his mouth to savor in slow, purposeful bites. When Kris flips through one of his friend’s college textbooks and sees the planet Uranus and its pale blue aura reflected on one of the glossy pages, he thinks of Adam’s passion for astrology and the dirty jokes that Adam and some of his closest friends had shared with Kris over beer and cocktails. When his manager books him to appear at a fundraising event for the “Go Green” campaign and he shocks the hell out of everyone when he trades his microphone for a garden shovel and kneels down next to the bed of flowers, a clump of cornflower blue forget-me-nots in one hand and a mound of packing soil in the other, he thinks of Adam leaving post-it notes all over the bus during the last several weeks of the tour: small colorful squares with bits of fragmented lyrics scribbled across them; song ideas that ran through his head day and night, but had not yet come to complete fruition; ideas that were worthy enough to be remembered, but vague enough to be forgotten, if not for the written notes.
Kris goes about this particular day as he has gone about the others: writing songs, recording music and promoting his album in a sea of blue haze; all of the other colors of the rainbow now appearing dulled and somber against the spectacular azure backdrop that has followed Kris everywhere since the separation. But, when the daylight begins to fade and Kris finds himself at yet another industry party without Adam, swirling some sort of frothy blue Margarita in his fancy glass and nodding at the couple of talking suits in front of him, thinking that he may just have to settle for such small, colorful reminders of Adam’s influence in his life, a hand settles over his shoulder and turns him around, and he finds himself gazing up into the vivid blue of Adam’s eyes. Kris doesn’t say anything; he simply allows himself to look at all of the shades of blue reflected there. As close as they are, he can see the reflective, pale blue that circles closest to Adam’s pupils before giving way to the cerulean mixed with tiny specks of grey and green, and the deeper, sapphire blue that lines the outer edges - a perfect mixture of light and dark, innocent and dangerous, that leads into an expanse of white with a small mixture of tired red.
Blue has always been Kris’ favorite color, ever since he was a little boy and Charles had told him that blue was a boy’s color and, since Kris was obviously a boy, he should appreciate things that were blue. Now, in his mid 20s and far outside of the influence of Charles and such narrow-minded, stereotypical beliefs, Kris stands with a laughing Adam, whose eyes twinkle down at him over a glass of champagne, and thinks that he wouldn’t mind drowning in a sea of blue if it meant spending the rest of his life next to the man whose eyes seep shimmering specks of crystal blue light whenever he looks at Kris.
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