Fic: What's True
Title: What's True
Author: morganlight
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: PG-13, again. I don't really write smut, but I swear a lot to keep things intense. [... and now I want a smut challenge...]
Notes: God, somebody stop me. I've written more drafts of this damn thing than of my entire two hundred page novel. I needed it to be perfect. And well, it's not perfect, but it's still different enough to make me nervous. Different from the rest of the series, that is, starting with So Much To Say and continuing with Overdue and Fair. Charles takes a backseat, finally, as Kris grows some balls and calls the person he really needs to.
There is also more narrative prose here than in any of the previous installments. I hope it works. I tried.
What’s True
wanna hold you like a secret wanna hold you like a hand
wanna hold you like a prisoner in the arms of my remand
caught for good
It was four am, and Kris could not sleep.
It wasn’t that he was cold, although so much time in LA had dampened his ability to deal with strong weather so that Arkansas in December felt like the arctic circle. It wasn’t the guest bed in his parents’ house. It wasn’t anything concrete or physical, or even the post-holiday excitement that used to keep him up as a kid.
It was something else.
He slipped out of bed, gave Katy the extra sheets, pulled on some socks from his rumpled suitcase, and padded downstairs to where his phone was sitting on the kitchen counter.
He picked it up and clicked a few buttons.
“Mrrfggghh. Hello?”
“Charles?”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I have a pretty good idea, yeah.”
“What the hell is it?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Obviously.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“Back in September. I was in Boston or something, and you called…”
“… you do have a memory.”
“To say that things weren’t ever fair. That I couldn’t ignore it just because it wasn’t fair.”
“I said that?”
“You wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“Well, good for me.”
“You were right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
Kris rolled his eyes. “Really, though. I’ve spent the last three months trying to ignore it, and it feels like I’m ignoring a limb, or missing half my face, or…”
“Kris?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not the person you need to be calling right now.”
“… oh.” Kris was startled. He’d wanted a kind of comfort. He wouldn’t be getting it. Not this time.
“I’ve said enough. It’s up to you, now.”
“Right.”
“So hang up and dial the right goddamned number. And for the sake of God, tell him the truth.”
Kris smiled, despite himself. “Charles… thanks. Seriously. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Buy me a beer or two and we’ll be even. Bye.”
When the display timer stopped counting, Kris stared at his phone, trying to find strength to bring up his contact list and select the right person. There were so many people he could be calling.
Kris rubbed his forehead and stepped across the threshold from the kitchen to the livingroom, sat back on the antique sofa, and dialed the first person - alphabetically, he always insisted - on his contact list.
because to leave you with those days is never something i could do
there'll always be a part of me that needs to be with you
that's just what's true
It rang at least five times. He half expected it to go to voice mail. Then there was a muffled, familiar voice.
“’lo?”
“Adam?”
“Kris?” Kris heard whispering - perhaps a hushed explanation to leave and push back into a bathroom or hallway. It was the middle of the night in Arkansas, but in California, it was always early evening. Or so it seemed.
“Where are you?”
“At home. Well, in a manner of speaking. There are lots of people here. I’m in the bathroom right now, though.” Pause. “Is everything okay?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Kris laughed at his inadvertent echo of Adam’s speech. He’d been doing that more and more lately. “I just wanted… to see how you were.”
“I’m about to pass out, honestly. I’ve had too much to drink and I think I’m getting too old for this partying thing. How are you? How’s Katy?”
Kris cringed.
“Hello?”
“I miss you.”
Digital silence crashed against him in waves. Then, “I miss you, too.”
“I can’t get used to this. Being apart.”
“Well, I mean. It’s just the holidays. Family time, you know. You’ll be back in LA in no time.”
“I don’t mean the holidays. I mean all the time.”
“Well, we’re out of the Idol bubble. Have been for a while. We have to get used to reality.”
“I’m not sure I like reality so much anymore.”
“Kris-”
“A huge part of me wants to go back on tour. Back to when we could sleep on the same couch without having to explain ourselves. When the roadies would leave us alone, because they knew we liked to be alone. When we didn’t have to make excuses about being together all the time.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know. I got lost, somehow, but I didn’t notice, because you were lost with me. You were always there. Always just a bed, or just a bunk, away. And now you’re not, and… I can’t sleep without you here.”
“Katy’s there.”
“Yeah, she is. But she’s not you.”
“Kris, you can’t say stuff like that! I told you.”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I, if it’s true?”
“It complicates everything! We can’t-”
“It was already complicated! We are complicated. This whole thing is.”
“What thing?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
“You… you should be in bed. I’m not going to steal you away from anyone.”
“You aren’t. I’m stealing myself.” Kris took a breath. “Fuck, Adam. It’s four in the morning, my wife is upstairs asleep, and I’m sitting here on the couch talking to you. That’s gotta say something.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like everything I’ve been trying to tell you!” Kris thought about Charles’s kind, clean words. “I’ve been trying. And I’m really going to do it now.”
“Okay. But no more jokes. I’m too tired to flirt like a fifteen year old.”
“You… it was never a joke,” Kris said softly.
there you were black silver dressed in gold
like every story ever told
a million words in so few sentences
He took a deep breath.
“It was always true, that… that I never gave half a thought to joking about you until I started to feel things. It’s true that I turned the feelings into something sarcastic because I couldn’t deal with them in any other way. What’s true is that before I met you, I had… I had always just gone through the motions, because there was a life I was supposed to lead, and I couldn’t think outside of expectation, that strict and scripted scene. So I turned my feelings into something impossible, something amusing.
“But you were so ridiculous and daring, like… like a glass bottle lined up on a fence with tin cans. Different, and not afraid of your feelings. Of anything.” Kris felt a pulse form inside his head, he was so nervous. “Nothing ever I said was meant to tease you, or hurt you, or… anything. I understand now that joking around just felt like the only option for me - all I could do, to deal with you.
“But it didn’t work. And I can’t deal. Because despite trying, despite trying to move on and get on with life and go back to where I was and throw this thing away, it’s always been just like Charles said, so I am telling you right now-”
“Charles? Charles knows?”
“-that I am in love with you. And that is the truth.”
when you spoke to me it rang out like a song
that dared all ears to hear it wrong
“Kris, don’t- don’t say things if you don’t know what they mean.”
“I’ve never meant anything more in my entire life.”
“…shit, Kris.”
”Yeah.”
“I don’t know what to say right now.”
“Just… say something to make me less scared.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m scared too.”
It was so stark, Kris wanted to whimper.
“I feel like I’m in one of those geeky actor dreams when I’m onstage in front of the audience and I don’t know my lines cause I never learned the script.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Taking advantage. Fucking up. Being hurt. Everything.” Kris could almost hear the hitch in Adam’s breath, and it broke his heart. “What about you?”
“… that I’m never going to love anybody else like this. That it’s just going to go to waste.”
“God. We can’t. I love you - you know I love you - but we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Kris…”
“What?” He did not want to hear the voice of reason. Not now.
“What if you’re wrong? What if it’s just some insomnia-induced sleepwalk that’s telling you you’re in love with me? You have a life, Kris. What if this goes away?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
“Adam, I am so sick of if. If is what got me into this mess in the first place, and it sure as hell isn’t going to get me out. I hate if. I want yes or no. I want something fucking solid.” Kris felt vulgar, suddenly. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for swearing. Some situations just call for it. I’d say that this fucking qualifies.”
There was a very long pause.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t even know. I just need to see you.”
Kris heard something shift, in the air, over the phone. The silence waited slowly, like his own thick tongue.
“Well,” Adam began, after Kris had nearly given up, “I don’t want you to feel pressure or anything, but if you wanted to, I could fly back early and meet you at the airport, and we could… I mean, talk or something. Figure things out. Just the two of us.”
“I-”
“Not that it has to be weird or difficult, or even different than normal, but… ”
“But?”
“ … but if I said I didn’t miss the fuck out of you, if I said I didn’t sit on the couch and picture your arm around me, if… if I said I didn’t want you with me so badly I could choke, I’d be a fucking liar.”
to never know to never see to never reach a place to be
to never understand your way has put a limit on my days
Kris felt his throat pinch up. “I want to go. I want to go right now.”
“We can meet tomorrow, if you want. I’ll take an early flight out, and so could you, if you want?”
Tomorrow didn’t feel soon enough. But there was no other option.
Just one more day.
“Tomorrow. I want to see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll change my flight when I get up.” Resolute. “Call me in the morning, regardless.”
“I will.” Pause. “Adam.”
“Yeah?”
He almost said I love you. But it felt too soon. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I mean.”
There was a sigh. Kris felt the breath against his earlobe, though his rational sense told him such a thing was impossible.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Right now I’ve gotta shower and pass out in this bathroom so I can look halfway decent at noon.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.”
Before hitting ‘end’, Kris made a stupid, simple gesture- he put his lips against the end of his phone, as if the speaker-space was somehow sentient and Adam would know exactly what he meant.
Someone coughed.
Kris looked up. Katy was standing in the doorway.
Her eyes were bleary with sleep, but slightly rimmed with red, like a warning. The rest of her was blue: blue nightgown, blue kitchen tile, blue-tinged skin from the fluorescent lighting.
She was completely nonthreatening, somehow. Kris would have expected to be terrified of her, under the circumstances. Or at least embarrassed. Caught in the act of such a confession.
But perhaps this was the least painful way to go.
“Honey. I-”
“I heard.”
Kris swallowed. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything. Enough. I don’t even know.”
“Oh god. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. You… you haven’t exactly been here, with me, for a while. Your head’s long been somewhere else. I knew a lot of it already.”
“How would you know?”
“Charles and I have been talking.”
“He talks to you too? What is he, the family therapist?”
“I was the one who brought you up.” She looked defiant, despite her crumpled face. “I asked him if you’d told him anything important. He said yes.”
“… never one to lie.”
“No.”
She licked her lips. Katy had a beautiful face, even having recently had her cheeks buried against a pillow. Her eyes were fully open now, but Kris couldn’t read them.
“You love him. So go.”
so long it's too late
He still felt the need to ask permission. “Are you sure-”
“I’ll book the goddamn flight, if you won’t.”
“But-”
“Kris, I’m not going to fight you. So please don’t fight me.”
There were tears in her eyes, but the left side of her top lip was curled upwards slightly, somehow forming a mysterious smile.
so i said heart, translate
cause i dont understand a thing that you say
LAX made sense to Kris. Most airports struck him as weird, convoluted, and secretive, like there was some special code you had to know to get from gate to gate. But he understood LAX. He followed the terminal to the escalator to the baggage belt in straight lines. Good song. But he was still scared.
So he called Charles.
“Are you going to talk me through this, or what?”
“Loser.”
“Guilty as charged.”
He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for. A year of fame had acclimated him to large Sharpied signs in capitals: KRIS ALLEN, or even AMERICAN IDOL. Instead, there were endless white floors and a sea of strangers.
maybe we'll see it all as it's fading away
different memories will come
different seasons and days
“What if he isn’t here?”
“He’s there, Kris.”
“But what if he isn’t?”
“Just get your goddamn suitcase and chill out.”
“Okay. Chilling.”
It took another thirty minutes for the luggage belt to scream to life, though, and Charles was still babbling about something involving leftover turkey. Kris was startled out of a half-coma, then looked for a suitcase - red, with a belt around it. No black carry-on. He refused to cater to anonymity anymore. He would stand out. He had to.
“Got the bag now. Getting nervous.”
“You are the worst fucking famous person in the world.”
“And that’s why I have you.”
There was a half-wall between baggage claim and passenger pickup, and the enthused parties were standing, shunning plastic chairs. Kris hadn’t bothered to search for him yet.
But then. Then he saw black hair, a big grin, and eyes like an eclipse underwater, slightly lined with darker measures.
“Oh god, he’s here.”
“Of course he is.
“Oh god, oh god-”
“Dude. Breathe.”
“I’m trying.”
“Kris. You have nothing to worry about. You already have him. Don’t think, now. Just do.”
Charles hung up.
Kris dragged his suitcase and laptop bag into the waiting area to where Adam was standing, smiling. He kept walking until their chests were almost touching and he had to crane his neck to look up.
“You’re late,” Adam said.
“Sorry. Luggage.” Kris tried to sound chill. He could hear Charles’ easy laughter at his awkwardness, as if he were right there next to him.
Adam’s grin matched his now, like a double current. Perhaps it was their obvious proximity, but the other passengers in view were staring at them, Kris noticed - staring, some of them smiling.
It was excruciatingly public. And Kris thought a minute, but he couldn’t imagine a better situation to step up, nuzzle Adam’s chin with his rough cheek, and then give him the kind of kiss he usually reserved for recent daydreams.
He heard people gasp, in disgust or approval. Honestly, Kris didn’t care which. He had to be close. He couldn’t help but do this - stubble and overnight smells be damned.
He still had things to say, of course - love-things, strange things, long overdue - but this kiss, dry as it broke apart and rejoined, not quite dedicated but no less than promising - this was a good start.
as long as it takes
oh the heart it translates
it can never be wrong
it can only be late
end.
[lyrics from ‘Heart Translation’ by Art of Fighting.]
Author: morganlight
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: PG-13, again. I don't really write smut, but I swear a lot to keep things intense. [... and now I want a smut challenge...]
Notes: God, somebody stop me. I've written more drafts of this damn thing than of my entire two hundred page novel. I needed it to be perfect. And well, it's not perfect, but it's still different enough to make me nervous. Different from the rest of the series, that is, starting with So Much To Say and continuing with Overdue and Fair. Charles takes a backseat, finally, as Kris grows some balls and calls the person he really needs to.
There is also more narrative prose here than in any of the previous installments. I hope it works. I tried.
What’s True
wanna hold you like a secret wanna hold you like a hand
wanna hold you like a prisoner in the arms of my remand
caught for good
It was four am, and Kris could not sleep.
It wasn’t that he was cold, although so much time in LA had dampened his ability to deal with strong weather so that Arkansas in December felt like the arctic circle. It wasn’t the guest bed in his parents’ house. It wasn’t anything concrete or physical, or even the post-holiday excitement that used to keep him up as a kid.
It was something else.
He slipped out of bed, gave Katy the extra sheets, pulled on some socks from his rumpled suitcase, and padded downstairs to where his phone was sitting on the kitchen counter.
He picked it up and clicked a few buttons.
“Mrrfggghh. Hello?”
“Charles?”
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I have a pretty good idea, yeah.”
“What the hell is it?”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Obviously.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“Back in September. I was in Boston or something, and you called…”
“… you do have a memory.”
“To say that things weren’t ever fair. That I couldn’t ignore it just because it wasn’t fair.”
“I said that?”
“You wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“Well, good for me.”
“You were right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
Kris rolled his eyes. “Really, though. I’ve spent the last three months trying to ignore it, and it feels like I’m ignoring a limb, or missing half my face, or…”
“Kris?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not the person you need to be calling right now.”
“… oh.” Kris was startled. He’d wanted a kind of comfort. He wouldn’t be getting it. Not this time.
“I’ve said enough. It’s up to you, now.”
“Right.”
“So hang up and dial the right goddamned number. And for the sake of God, tell him the truth.”
Kris smiled, despite himself. “Charles… thanks. Seriously. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Buy me a beer or two and we’ll be even. Bye.”
When the display timer stopped counting, Kris stared at his phone, trying to find strength to bring up his contact list and select the right person. There were so many people he could be calling.
Kris rubbed his forehead and stepped across the threshold from the kitchen to the livingroom, sat back on the antique sofa, and dialed the first person - alphabetically, he always insisted - on his contact list.
because to leave you with those days is never something i could do
there'll always be a part of me that needs to be with you
that's just what's true
It rang at least five times. He half expected it to go to voice mail. Then there was a muffled, familiar voice.
“’lo?”
“Adam?”
“Kris?” Kris heard whispering - perhaps a hushed explanation to leave and push back into a bathroom or hallway. It was the middle of the night in Arkansas, but in California, it was always early evening. Or so it seemed.
“Where are you?”
“At home. Well, in a manner of speaking. There are lots of people here. I’m in the bathroom right now, though.” Pause. “Is everything okay?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Kris laughed at his inadvertent echo of Adam’s speech. He’d been doing that more and more lately. “I just wanted… to see how you were.”
“I’m about to pass out, honestly. I’ve had too much to drink and I think I’m getting too old for this partying thing. How are you? How’s Katy?”
Kris cringed.
“Hello?”
“I miss you.”
Digital silence crashed against him in waves. Then, “I miss you, too.”
“I can’t get used to this. Being apart.”
“Well, I mean. It’s just the holidays. Family time, you know. You’ll be back in LA in no time.”
“I don’t mean the holidays. I mean all the time.”
“Well, we’re out of the Idol bubble. Have been for a while. We have to get used to reality.”
“I’m not sure I like reality so much anymore.”
“Kris-”
“A huge part of me wants to go back on tour. Back to when we could sleep on the same couch without having to explain ourselves. When the roadies would leave us alone, because they knew we liked to be alone. When we didn’t have to make excuses about being together all the time.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know. I got lost, somehow, but I didn’t notice, because you were lost with me. You were always there. Always just a bed, or just a bunk, away. And now you’re not, and… I can’t sleep without you here.”
“Katy’s there.”
“Yeah, she is. But she’s not you.”
“Kris, you can’t say stuff like that! I told you.”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I, if it’s true?”
“It complicates everything! We can’t-”
“It was already complicated! We are complicated. This whole thing is.”
“What thing?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know.”
“You… you should be in bed. I’m not going to steal you away from anyone.”
“You aren’t. I’m stealing myself.” Kris took a breath. “Fuck, Adam. It’s four in the morning, my wife is upstairs asleep, and I’m sitting here on the couch talking to you. That’s gotta say something.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Like everything I’ve been trying to tell you!” Kris thought about Charles’s kind, clean words. “I’ve been trying. And I’m really going to do it now.”
“Okay. But no more jokes. I’m too tired to flirt like a fifteen year old.”
“You… it was never a joke,” Kris said softly.
there you were black silver dressed in gold
like every story ever told
a million words in so few sentences
He took a deep breath.
“It was always true, that… that I never gave half a thought to joking about you until I started to feel things. It’s true that I turned the feelings into something sarcastic because I couldn’t deal with them in any other way. What’s true is that before I met you, I had… I had always just gone through the motions, because there was a life I was supposed to lead, and I couldn’t think outside of expectation, that strict and scripted scene. So I turned my feelings into something impossible, something amusing.
“But you were so ridiculous and daring, like… like a glass bottle lined up on a fence with tin cans. Different, and not afraid of your feelings. Of anything.” Kris felt a pulse form inside his head, he was so nervous. “Nothing ever I said was meant to tease you, or hurt you, or… anything. I understand now that joking around just felt like the only option for me - all I could do, to deal with you.
“But it didn’t work. And I can’t deal. Because despite trying, despite trying to move on and get on with life and go back to where I was and throw this thing away, it’s always been just like Charles said, so I am telling you right now-”
“Charles? Charles knows?”
“-that I am in love with you. And that is the truth.”
when you spoke to me it rang out like a song
that dared all ears to hear it wrong
“Kris, don’t- don’t say things if you don’t know what they mean.”
“I’ve never meant anything more in my entire life.”
“…shit, Kris.”
”Yeah.”
“I don’t know what to say right now.”
“Just… say something to make me less scared.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m scared too.”
It was so stark, Kris wanted to whimper.
“I feel like I’m in one of those geeky actor dreams when I’m onstage in front of the audience and I don’t know my lines cause I never learned the script.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Taking advantage. Fucking up. Being hurt. Everything.” Kris could almost hear the hitch in Adam’s breath, and it broke his heart. “What about you?”
“… that I’m never going to love anybody else like this. That it’s just going to go to waste.”
“God. We can’t. I love you - you know I love you - but we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Kris…”
“What?” He did not want to hear the voice of reason. Not now.
“What if you’re wrong? What if it’s just some insomnia-induced sleepwalk that’s telling you you’re in love with me? You have a life, Kris. What if this goes away?”
“It won’t.”
“But what if it does?”
“Adam, I am so sick of if. If is what got me into this mess in the first place, and it sure as hell isn’t going to get me out. I hate if. I want yes or no. I want something fucking solid.” Kris felt vulgar, suddenly. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for swearing. Some situations just call for it. I’d say that this fucking qualifies.”
There was a very long pause.
“So what happens now?”
“I don’t even know. I just need to see you.”
Kris heard something shift, in the air, over the phone. The silence waited slowly, like his own thick tongue.
“Well,” Adam began, after Kris had nearly given up, “I don’t want you to feel pressure or anything, but if you wanted to, I could fly back early and meet you at the airport, and we could… I mean, talk or something. Figure things out. Just the two of us.”
“I-”
“Not that it has to be weird or difficult, or even different than normal, but… ”
“But?”
“ … but if I said I didn’t miss the fuck out of you, if I said I didn’t sit on the couch and picture your arm around me, if… if I said I didn’t want you with me so badly I could choke, I’d be a fucking liar.”
to never know to never see to never reach a place to be
to never understand your way has put a limit on my days
Kris felt his throat pinch up. “I want to go. I want to go right now.”
“We can meet tomorrow, if you want. I’ll take an early flight out, and so could you, if you want?”
Tomorrow didn’t feel soon enough. But there was no other option.
Just one more day.
“Tomorrow. I want to see you tomorrow.”
“I’ll change my flight when I get up.” Resolute. “Call me in the morning, regardless.”
“I will.” Pause. “Adam.”
“Yeah?”
He almost said I love you. But it felt too soon. “Thank you.”
“Of course. I mean.”
There was a sigh. Kris felt the breath against his earlobe, though his rational sense told him such a thing was impossible.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Right now I’ve gotta shower and pass out in this bathroom so I can look halfway decent at noon.”
“Right. See you tomorrow.”
Before hitting ‘end’, Kris made a stupid, simple gesture- he put his lips against the end of his phone, as if the speaker-space was somehow sentient and Adam would know exactly what he meant.
Someone coughed.
Kris looked up. Katy was standing in the doorway.
Her eyes were bleary with sleep, but slightly rimmed with red, like a warning. The rest of her was blue: blue nightgown, blue kitchen tile, blue-tinged skin from the fluorescent lighting.
She was completely nonthreatening, somehow. Kris would have expected to be terrified of her, under the circumstances. Or at least embarrassed. Caught in the act of such a confession.
But perhaps this was the least painful way to go.
“Honey. I-”
“I heard.”
Kris swallowed. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything. Enough. I don’t even know.”
“Oh god. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. You… you haven’t exactly been here, with me, for a while. Your head’s long been somewhere else. I knew a lot of it already.”
“How would you know?”
“Charles and I have been talking.”
“He talks to you too? What is he, the family therapist?”
“I was the one who brought you up.” She looked defiant, despite her crumpled face. “I asked him if you’d told him anything important. He said yes.”
“… never one to lie.”
“No.”
She licked her lips. Katy had a beautiful face, even having recently had her cheeks buried against a pillow. Her eyes were fully open now, but Kris couldn’t read them.
“You love him. So go.”
so long it's too late
He still felt the need to ask permission. “Are you sure-”
“I’ll book the goddamn flight, if you won’t.”
“But-”
“Kris, I’m not going to fight you. So please don’t fight me.”
There were tears in her eyes, but the left side of her top lip was curled upwards slightly, somehow forming a mysterious smile.
so i said heart, translate
cause i dont understand a thing that you say
LAX made sense to Kris. Most airports struck him as weird, convoluted, and secretive, like there was some special code you had to know to get from gate to gate. But he understood LAX. He followed the terminal to the escalator to the baggage belt in straight lines. Good song. But he was still scared.
So he called Charles.
“Are you going to talk me through this, or what?”
“Loser.”
“Guilty as charged.”
He didn’t even know what he was supposed to be looking for. A year of fame had acclimated him to large Sharpied signs in capitals: KRIS ALLEN, or even AMERICAN IDOL. Instead, there were endless white floors and a sea of strangers.
maybe we'll see it all as it's fading away
different memories will come
different seasons and days
“What if he isn’t here?”
“He’s there, Kris.”
“But what if he isn’t?”
“Just get your goddamn suitcase and chill out.”
“Okay. Chilling.”
It took another thirty minutes for the luggage belt to scream to life, though, and Charles was still babbling about something involving leftover turkey. Kris was startled out of a half-coma, then looked for a suitcase - red, with a belt around it. No black carry-on. He refused to cater to anonymity anymore. He would stand out. He had to.
“Got the bag now. Getting nervous.”
“You are the worst fucking famous person in the world.”
“And that’s why I have you.”
There was a half-wall between baggage claim and passenger pickup, and the enthused parties were standing, shunning plastic chairs. Kris hadn’t bothered to search for him yet.
But then. Then he saw black hair, a big grin, and eyes like an eclipse underwater, slightly lined with darker measures.
“Oh god, he’s here.”
“Of course he is.
“Oh god, oh god-”
“Dude. Breathe.”
“I’m trying.”
“Kris. You have nothing to worry about. You already have him. Don’t think, now. Just do.”
Charles hung up.
Kris dragged his suitcase and laptop bag into the waiting area to where Adam was standing, smiling. He kept walking until their chests were almost touching and he had to crane his neck to look up.
“You’re late,” Adam said.
“Sorry. Luggage.” Kris tried to sound chill. He could hear Charles’ easy laughter at his awkwardness, as if he were right there next to him.
Adam’s grin matched his now, like a double current. Perhaps it was their obvious proximity, but the other passengers in view were staring at them, Kris noticed - staring, some of them smiling.
It was excruciatingly public. And Kris thought a minute, but he couldn’t imagine a better situation to step up, nuzzle Adam’s chin with his rough cheek, and then give him the kind of kiss he usually reserved for recent daydreams.
He heard people gasp, in disgust or approval. Honestly, Kris didn’t care which. He had to be close. He couldn’t help but do this - stubble and overnight smells be damned.
He still had things to say, of course - love-things, strange things, long overdue - but this kiss, dry as it broke apart and rejoined, not quite dedicated but no less than promising - this was a good start.
as long as it takes
oh the heart it translates
it can never be wrong
it can only be late
end.
[lyrics from ‘Heart Translation’ by Art of Fighting.]