The Rain - Chapter 8
Title: The Rain
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Rating: NC-17 occasionally
Warnings: some violence and horror elements
Summary: AI8 tour. Adam is involved in a serious car accident that leaves him struggling to recover emotionally. Kris tries to help but is soon dealing with his own internal crisis.
Chapter 8
Kris sat backstage with his laptop, working on the lyrics of his song, listening to pieces of it he’d recorded. Allison drifted up.
“Hey. Whatcha doing?”
“Just working on a song.”
“I heard you guys were dancing on your bus. Sounds like a lot more fun than ours.” She sat down with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m not sure it was fun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. What’re you up to?”
“Nothing. Just bored. I guess I should go put on my-”
Two men in Security shirts ran by, quickly followed by two more. Across the wide backstage area, Samantha talked urgently into her phone.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked, wide-eyed.
Kris shook his head.
The scattering of other people who were distributed around the big space gazed after the security people, who had gone through a door that led to the public area of the concert arena.
“Trouble with some fans, maybe,” Kris speculated.
“Have you got him?” They could hear Samantha from where they sat, and her voice snapped with tension. “Have you got him?”
Seconds stretched out. Everyone watched Samantha, who was oblivious of the attention as she waited for more information from her phone. “Can you get back here?...Do you need more help?...Okay. Is he all right?”
The door Security had gone through burst open, and five of them came through, with Adam between them. His hair was in his face, his shirt was ripped, and there were red welts from fingernail scratches on his arms.
“Oh my God,” Allison said, wide-eyed.
Adam shook free of the security people. One of them tried to take his arm. “Come on, let’s go to the first-aid-“
“Get away from me! Just leave me alone!” Adam swatted the hand away and backed up. The security guys ringed him and looked to Samantha for guidance.
“Are you all right?” Samantha asked him. He turned without answering her and headed away down the hall toward the dressing rooms. “Adam! …Adam!” She glared after him, furious. “Thank you,” she said to the security people. “Thank you.” They nodded and shrugged and headed back to their stations. Samantha got on her phone again. “Geoff! I need to talk to you. Call me!” She hung up and looked after where Adam had disappeared. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Allison looked at Kris uncertainly. “Do you think somebody should see if he’s ok? What was he doing out there?”
Something stupid. Trying to get himself hurt.
“I’ll think I’ll go see if he’s ok.” Allison stood up.
“No.” Kris closed his laptop. There was no telling what frame of mind Adam was in at the moment, and his behavior seemed to be all over the map. Kris didn’t want Allison to walk into that. “I’ll go.” I can’t just leave him out there like this.
* * *
Kris knocked on the dressing room door, and immediately heard, “Not now!” He opened the door and stepped in.
For a moment Adam didn’t realize someone had come in. He sat at the dressing table with his face in his hands. The door clicked shut, and he looked around in incredulous anger. Kris was ready, and met the look calmly.
Adam stood up and kicked the chair aside. The tension in the little room shivered the hair on Kris’ arms. Oh, boy. Maybe I’m in a little over my head here. “What part of ‘not now’ don’t I understand?,” Kris said with a small smile.
Adam’s mouth was tight, and the look in his eyes was plain reproach. Oh, great. He noticed that I was avoiding him. Now I’ve hurt him, along with everything else that’s happened.
“Well you can understand this: get out of here,” Adam said.
Kris sat down and kept his voice soft. “I can’t. Tell me what happened-what happened out there.” He nodded toward the main venue area.
Adam lifted a shoulder. “I wanted something to eat. They didn’t have what I wanted backstage, so I went out to buy something. So what?”
Unbelievable. But totally believable. Even when Adam’s sane his judgment is questionable. Besides, it wasn’t about food. “You didn’t think you’d be recognized? You didn’t think people’d go crazy?”
“Did you walk in here to lecture me? Fuck you, Kris. Just get out of here. You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here.”
“I do want to be here-“
“Shut up. Just go. Cause you know what, I’m fine!”
“You’re not fine-“
“Get out of here! I don’t want to see you! You don’t make things better. You make them worse, do you understand?”
The sting of that turned Kris’ head. Take it easy, don’t react. It’s probably true. I want to help, but maybe I can’t. Maybe it’s better for both of us if I just leave him alone. He stood up and forced himself to look at Adam. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“For what? You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.” Adam’s voice held scorn Kris never thought he would hear from him.
“For making it worse. For whatever I’ve done, for whatever part I played in messing up our friendship.”
Adam just stared at him, with his torn shirt and a look like an animal that had run to its very last inch of ground.
“We don’t have a friendship.”
Kris blinked. He came expecting Adam to be angry, but not cruel. He raised his brows ruefully and gave Adam as good a smile as he could manage. “I don’t think that-“
“The door’s right behind you.” Adam’s voice was silk, and his lovely eyes glinted with panic and hatred. Kris turned and went.
* * *
Adam dropped into a chair and bent double, rocking himself for comfort. His mind was nothing but wind and flying shreds of who he had been.
Some time later he straightened up, took control of himself as of a marionette, and began to dress for his performance.
* * *
While he waited to go on, Kris watched Adam’s set from backstage. It was flat-out amazing how good he was. He was becoming a dangerously dysfunctional human being, and at the same time performing at a higher level than Kris had ever seen. Maybe it was because amping the crazy only upped what made Adam good to begin with, that quality that made the audience febrile knowing they were watching someone who either ignored, or had no sense of, the social boundaries of public behavior. Adam all but had sex with himself onstage while delivering notes that most singers could only hear in their imaginations. He sent out a hurricane of sound, and the crowd returned it. By the time the lift lowered him into the stage, Kris thought some light had returned to his face. Rock and roll therapy.
It was Kris’ turn to perform, and he felt his heart flutter. There were a lot of people out there. The crowd surged and murmured like the ocean. Kris worked to relax. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at it. Calm settled over him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small knot of people near a backstage office. Samantha had apparently found Geoff, and now Raj joined them. Their heads were close, and the talk was animated. Kris was sure he knew what the subject was. Then his music started, and his attention went to the stage.
* * *
As the Idols came off stage at the end of the night’s performance, Geoff intercepted Adam. Adam’s smile flickered as Geoff put his hand on his shoulder, and he swerved out from under it. Kris’ feet slowed unconsciously as he watched the scene.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Geoff asked mildly. He retrieved his hand and made no further attempt to touch Adam.
Adam stopped. “Sure.” But Kris could see the stress in his half-closed lids and his unnatural stillness. Don’t push him, Geoff. Just let him go.
Geoff became aware that a number people were looking at them. He nodded toward a doorway. “Let’s go in here. It’ll be quieter.”
“You know what?” Adam said lightly. “Let’s not. I just want to get on the bus and go to sleep. Is that ok?”
Geoff hesitated for a second. “Sure. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s no big deal. I just want to see how you’re doing.”
Adam nodded, his mouth in a faint, bitter smile. “That’ll be fun.” He strode away.
Geoff watched him go. Then his eyes came unexpectedly to Kris, who was embarrassed at being caught watching. Geoff looked at him thoughtfully as Kris got back to the business of walking to his dressing room.
* * *
Kris was in Adam’s dressing room, but it wasn’t like a real dressing room. A section at the back opened up to a bus, filled with bunks and beds of different sizes. The bedclothes were thick and soft-looking and Kris could almost smell the clean cotton. The whole place hummed and vibrated, and Kris realized it was moving. The whole thing was a bus. There was a shower running. Kris could hear the hiss and splash of water, and feel the steam drifting from an open door. He looked in. Adam stood in the shower fully clothed, letting the water blast him. He tilted his head back, and the spray hit his face, exploding off it like diamonds. He turned to look at Kris. His face had no expression, and his eyes were an unreal color of gray-green and blue. Sheets of water slid down his body, flattening his shirt to his torso and gluing his jeans to his legs. Kris drew a deep breath, and felt the hot, wet air fill his lungs.
He stepped into the shower, fascinated by the water coursing down Adam’s neck. It made him thirsty, so thirsty. Slowly he leaned forward and drank. Hot water ran over his hand as he placed it on the soaked black denim on Adam’s thigh. He could feel the rough fabric under his palm.
The adrenalin woke Kris in his bunk. His heart was pounding, and his erection was huge.
Oh my God. What’s happening to me? This is crazy.
He thought of Adam lying in the bunk above, and instantly felt himself get harder.
Stop it! His eyes were wide in the dark. What is wrong with me? Tears stung him, and he shoved his fists against his head. This isn’t who I am. I’m having some kind of breakdown. It’s all this stuff with Adam. All this thinking about him. It’s making me crazy. I’m not gay. I don’t want to be gay. I just don’t want it. It’s not right for me. I don’t think about any other men. I’ve never been attracted to a man in my life! What is going on?
I have to get away from this. I have to get away from him. I can’t help him anyway; he said so. I don’t want to abandon him, but I can’t do this. It’s making me somebody I’m not.
* * *
Adam thought he heard Kris moving in the bunk below him, but with the roar of the bus moving down the road, he couldn’t be sure. Why was I so harsh to him? I overreacted. If he was trying to avoid me, he wouldn’t have come to see me. I’ve got to get control. He was just trying to help, and God knows, I need it. Everything that wasn’t already destroyed, I’m destroying
Adam had slept for about an hour after getting settled into his bunk, but now he was awake, and his exhausted and quietly bleeding mind could find no peace.
Geoff wants to talk. How nice. How’m I doing? Just fucking fine. Just leave me alone. What do they think I’m going to say? It’s not like there’s a mystery here. Everybody knows what happened. What do they want me to do? Just be ok? Sure, yeah, sorry. Now that you’ve asked, I’ll just be fine.
The hatred that he tried to hold down began to emerge like an oily smoke suffocating his mind.
Hate them. Hate them.
He made an involuntary sound of pain and rolled over.
Hurts. Going insane. Hurts. Oh, please help me, somebody.
Someone has to make it stop.
The hatred felt like two hammers slammed together with his head in the middle.
I can’t survive. I can’t do this. God, somebody help me.
He doubled over and hugged his pillow. There was no escape. No one was going to help. The pain was impossible. There was no way out.
Kris will help me. I can talk to Kris.
He held onto that thought as they traveled through the night.
* * *
It was pre-dawn as they transferred from the bus to the next hotel. It had been a fairly short ride to the new city. Adam felt like a disembodied spirit floating across the parking lot, down the hotel hallways, into his room. He hadn’t slept since waking up on the bus. That gave him four hours sleep in the last two days. More and more he was losing any sense of one place being different from another, and time seemed to have melted completely. It was night. It had always been night.
The room hummed with air conditioning. The hotel was a massive building, and the air conditioning inhabited it like a possessing demon. Adam couldn’t hear a thing but that hum. No human voice in the hallway. No bump of a closet door in the next room. No engine rumble from the street outside.
He stripped off his clothes and threw them on the ground. Ripped the bed covers back. He hated the very look of the unyielding, alien bed. When he lay down he found it was as unwelcoming as he’d expected. He shoved all the blankets to the foot and drew only the sheet over himself. I’m going to sleep.
The air conditioning hummed. The air was dry and smelled like fabric, like corners where lint gathers. A feeling grew within him, a twisting feeling, that he was the only person alive in the world. There were only the humming walls and the empty hallways, and parking lots where yellow lights shined off silent cars.
He buried his eyes against his arm in unconscious self-comfort. And then his arm flung away at the whisper that came softly but clearly over the air conditioner’s hum, a whisper with just enough thread of a voice to know that it was Carrie.
“Help me.”
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Rating: NC-17 occasionally
Warnings: some violence and horror elements
Summary: AI8 tour. Adam is involved in a serious car accident that leaves him struggling to recover emotionally. Kris tries to help but is soon dealing with his own internal crisis.
Chapter 8
Kris sat backstage with his laptop, working on the lyrics of his song, listening to pieces of it he’d recorded. Allison drifted up.
“Hey. Whatcha doing?”
“Just working on a song.”
“I heard you guys were dancing on your bus. Sounds like a lot more fun than ours.” She sat down with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m not sure it was fun.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. What’re you up to?”
“Nothing. Just bored. I guess I should go put on my-”
Two men in Security shirts ran by, quickly followed by two more. Across the wide backstage area, Samantha talked urgently into her phone.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked, wide-eyed.
Kris shook his head.
The scattering of other people who were distributed around the big space gazed after the security people, who had gone through a door that led to the public area of the concert arena.
“Trouble with some fans, maybe,” Kris speculated.
“Have you got him?” They could hear Samantha from where they sat, and her voice snapped with tension. “Have you got him?”
Seconds stretched out. Everyone watched Samantha, who was oblivious of the attention as she waited for more information from her phone. “Can you get back here?...Do you need more help?...Okay. Is he all right?”
The door Security had gone through burst open, and five of them came through, with Adam between them. His hair was in his face, his shirt was ripped, and there were red welts from fingernail scratches on his arms.
“Oh my God,” Allison said, wide-eyed.
Adam shook free of the security people. One of them tried to take his arm. “Come on, let’s go to the first-aid-“
“Get away from me! Just leave me alone!” Adam swatted the hand away and backed up. The security guys ringed him and looked to Samantha for guidance.
“Are you all right?” Samantha asked him. He turned without answering her and headed away down the hall toward the dressing rooms. “Adam! …Adam!” She glared after him, furious. “Thank you,” she said to the security people. “Thank you.” They nodded and shrugged and headed back to their stations. Samantha got on her phone again. “Geoff! I need to talk to you. Call me!” She hung up and looked after where Adam had disappeared. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Allison looked at Kris uncertainly. “Do you think somebody should see if he’s ok? What was he doing out there?”
Something stupid. Trying to get himself hurt.
“I’ll think I’ll go see if he’s ok.” Allison stood up.
“No.” Kris closed his laptop. There was no telling what frame of mind Adam was in at the moment, and his behavior seemed to be all over the map. Kris didn’t want Allison to walk into that. “I’ll go.” I can’t just leave him out there like this.
* * *
Kris knocked on the dressing room door, and immediately heard, “Not now!” He opened the door and stepped in.
For a moment Adam didn’t realize someone had come in. He sat at the dressing table with his face in his hands. The door clicked shut, and he looked around in incredulous anger. Kris was ready, and met the look calmly.
Adam stood up and kicked the chair aside. The tension in the little room shivered the hair on Kris’ arms. Oh, boy. Maybe I’m in a little over my head here. “What part of ‘not now’ don’t I understand?,” Kris said with a small smile.
Adam’s mouth was tight, and the look in his eyes was plain reproach. Oh, great. He noticed that I was avoiding him. Now I’ve hurt him, along with everything else that’s happened.
“Well you can understand this: get out of here,” Adam said.
Kris sat down and kept his voice soft. “I can’t. Tell me what happened-what happened out there.” He nodded toward the main venue area.
Adam lifted a shoulder. “I wanted something to eat. They didn’t have what I wanted backstage, so I went out to buy something. So what?”
Unbelievable. But totally believable. Even when Adam’s sane his judgment is questionable. Besides, it wasn’t about food. “You didn’t think you’d be recognized? You didn’t think people’d go crazy?”
“Did you walk in here to lecture me? Fuck you, Kris. Just get out of here. You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here.”
“I do want to be here-“
“Shut up. Just go. Cause you know what, I’m fine!”
“You’re not fine-“
“Get out of here! I don’t want to see you! You don’t make things better. You make them worse, do you understand?”
The sting of that turned Kris’ head. Take it easy, don’t react. It’s probably true. I want to help, but maybe I can’t. Maybe it’s better for both of us if I just leave him alone. He stood up and forced himself to look at Adam. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“For what? You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.” Adam’s voice held scorn Kris never thought he would hear from him.
“For making it worse. For whatever I’ve done, for whatever part I played in messing up our friendship.”
Adam just stared at him, with his torn shirt and a look like an animal that had run to its very last inch of ground.
“We don’t have a friendship.”
Kris blinked. He came expecting Adam to be angry, but not cruel. He raised his brows ruefully and gave Adam as good a smile as he could manage. “I don’t think that-“
“The door’s right behind you.” Adam’s voice was silk, and his lovely eyes glinted with panic and hatred. Kris turned and went.
* * *
Adam dropped into a chair and bent double, rocking himself for comfort. His mind was nothing but wind and flying shreds of who he had been.
Some time later he straightened up, took control of himself as of a marionette, and began to dress for his performance.
* * *
While he waited to go on, Kris watched Adam’s set from backstage. It was flat-out amazing how good he was. He was becoming a dangerously dysfunctional human being, and at the same time performing at a higher level than Kris had ever seen. Maybe it was because amping the crazy only upped what made Adam good to begin with, that quality that made the audience febrile knowing they were watching someone who either ignored, or had no sense of, the social boundaries of public behavior. Adam all but had sex with himself onstage while delivering notes that most singers could only hear in their imaginations. He sent out a hurricane of sound, and the crowd returned it. By the time the lift lowered him into the stage, Kris thought some light had returned to his face. Rock and roll therapy.
It was Kris’ turn to perform, and he felt his heart flutter. There were a lot of people out there. The crowd surged and murmured like the ocean. Kris worked to relax. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at it. Calm settled over him.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small knot of people near a backstage office. Samantha had apparently found Geoff, and now Raj joined them. Their heads were close, and the talk was animated. Kris was sure he knew what the subject was. Then his music started, and his attention went to the stage.
* * *
As the Idols came off stage at the end of the night’s performance, Geoff intercepted Adam. Adam’s smile flickered as Geoff put his hand on his shoulder, and he swerved out from under it. Kris’ feet slowed unconsciously as he watched the scene.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Geoff asked mildly. He retrieved his hand and made no further attempt to touch Adam.
Adam stopped. “Sure.” But Kris could see the stress in his half-closed lids and his unnatural stillness. Don’t push him, Geoff. Just let him go.
Geoff became aware that a number people were looking at them. He nodded toward a doorway. “Let’s go in here. It’ll be quieter.”
“You know what?” Adam said lightly. “Let’s not. I just want to get on the bus and go to sleep. Is that ok?”
Geoff hesitated for a second. “Sure. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s no big deal. I just want to see how you’re doing.”
Adam nodded, his mouth in a faint, bitter smile. “That’ll be fun.” He strode away.
Geoff watched him go. Then his eyes came unexpectedly to Kris, who was embarrassed at being caught watching. Geoff looked at him thoughtfully as Kris got back to the business of walking to his dressing room.
* * *
Kris was in Adam’s dressing room, but it wasn’t like a real dressing room. A section at the back opened up to a bus, filled with bunks and beds of different sizes. The bedclothes were thick and soft-looking and Kris could almost smell the clean cotton. The whole place hummed and vibrated, and Kris realized it was moving. The whole thing was a bus. There was a shower running. Kris could hear the hiss and splash of water, and feel the steam drifting from an open door. He looked in. Adam stood in the shower fully clothed, letting the water blast him. He tilted his head back, and the spray hit his face, exploding off it like diamonds. He turned to look at Kris. His face had no expression, and his eyes were an unreal color of gray-green and blue. Sheets of water slid down his body, flattening his shirt to his torso and gluing his jeans to his legs. Kris drew a deep breath, and felt the hot, wet air fill his lungs.
He stepped into the shower, fascinated by the water coursing down Adam’s neck. It made him thirsty, so thirsty. Slowly he leaned forward and drank. Hot water ran over his hand as he placed it on the soaked black denim on Adam’s thigh. He could feel the rough fabric under his palm.
The adrenalin woke Kris in his bunk. His heart was pounding, and his erection was huge.
Oh my God. What’s happening to me? This is crazy.
He thought of Adam lying in the bunk above, and instantly felt himself get harder.
Stop it! His eyes were wide in the dark. What is wrong with me? Tears stung him, and he shoved his fists against his head. This isn’t who I am. I’m having some kind of breakdown. It’s all this stuff with Adam. All this thinking about him. It’s making me crazy. I’m not gay. I don’t want to be gay. I just don’t want it. It’s not right for me. I don’t think about any other men. I’ve never been attracted to a man in my life! What is going on?
I have to get away from this. I have to get away from him. I can’t help him anyway; he said so. I don’t want to abandon him, but I can’t do this. It’s making me somebody I’m not.
* * *
Adam thought he heard Kris moving in the bunk below him, but with the roar of the bus moving down the road, he couldn’t be sure. Why was I so harsh to him? I overreacted. If he was trying to avoid me, he wouldn’t have come to see me. I’ve got to get control. He was just trying to help, and God knows, I need it. Everything that wasn’t already destroyed, I’m destroying
Adam had slept for about an hour after getting settled into his bunk, but now he was awake, and his exhausted and quietly bleeding mind could find no peace.
Geoff wants to talk. How nice. How’m I doing? Just fucking fine. Just leave me alone. What do they think I’m going to say? It’s not like there’s a mystery here. Everybody knows what happened. What do they want me to do? Just be ok? Sure, yeah, sorry. Now that you’ve asked, I’ll just be fine.
The hatred that he tried to hold down began to emerge like an oily smoke suffocating his mind.
Hate them. Hate them.
He made an involuntary sound of pain and rolled over.
Hurts. Going insane. Hurts. Oh, please help me, somebody.
Someone has to make it stop.
The hatred felt like two hammers slammed together with his head in the middle.
I can’t survive. I can’t do this. God, somebody help me.
He doubled over and hugged his pillow. There was no escape. No one was going to help. The pain was impossible. There was no way out.
Kris will help me. I can talk to Kris.
He held onto that thought as they traveled through the night.
* * *
It was pre-dawn as they transferred from the bus to the next hotel. It had been a fairly short ride to the new city. Adam felt like a disembodied spirit floating across the parking lot, down the hotel hallways, into his room. He hadn’t slept since waking up on the bus. That gave him four hours sleep in the last two days. More and more he was losing any sense of one place being different from another, and time seemed to have melted completely. It was night. It had always been night.
The room hummed with air conditioning. The hotel was a massive building, and the air conditioning inhabited it like a possessing demon. Adam couldn’t hear a thing but that hum. No human voice in the hallway. No bump of a closet door in the next room. No engine rumble from the street outside.
He stripped off his clothes and threw them on the ground. Ripped the bed covers back. He hated the very look of the unyielding, alien bed. When he lay down he found it was as unwelcoming as he’d expected. He shoved all the blankets to the foot and drew only the sheet over himself. I’m going to sleep.
The air conditioning hummed. The air was dry and smelled like fabric, like corners where lint gathers. A feeling grew within him, a twisting feeling, that he was the only person alive in the world. There were only the humming walls and the empty hallways, and parking lots where yellow lights shined off silent cars.
He buried his eyes against his arm in unconscious self-comfort. And then his arm flung away at the whisper that came softly but clearly over the air conditioner’s hum, a whisper with just enough thread of a voice to know that it was Carrie.
“Help me.”