The Rain - Chapter 12
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 12
On the bus, Adam went straight to his bunk and pulled the curtains. They’d been on the road only five minutes when he heard Kris’ say his name softly. What a gorgeous voice he has. The jerk.
“Yeah?” Adam said resentfully.
The curtain parted and a head appeared. Scruffy hair and serious brown eyes. Adam struggled to stay offended, but couldn’t hold on to the feeling. It was too obvious how upset Kris was at the thought he’d hurt him. Adam propped on an elbow.
“I’m sorry-“ Kris began.
“Forget it. People want to know. I sure as hell would.”
Kris’ face always revealed everything, and right now it revealed surprise. Adam gave a humorless snort. Kris must’ve expected a very different reaction. I’m surprised too. All of a sudden I decide to be reasonable? That really is crazy. So that’s what ‘unstable’ means. Interesting. I wonder what’s next?
“You know what, I don’t feel like lying down” he announced and sat up, pushing the curtains back.
Kris gave him room, but glanced worriedly toward the front of the bus. Adam made the mistake of forgetting his injured leg when he hopped down from the bunk and froze for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside. He was aware of Kris standing there, a hand suspended on its way to him.
“I’m fine,” Adam said with enough bite to back most people to the wall.
Kris didn’t back up. He only smiled and lowered his hand. “You know what? If you’ll stop saying that, I’ll stop saying everything’s okay.”
Adam straightened. Every time he thought he had Kris summed up, the man surprised him. “Well,” he said with as much attitude as he could manage, “I can’t promise that. Cause right now the only thing that lets me function is saying I’m fine. If I can’t say that, I’m done. I won’t be able to say I’m not fine until I am fine. Got it?”
“Absolutely.” Kris patted him on the shoulder. “But don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”
“Fuck you.”
“You wish.”
For a moment they were back to normal. Adam gave him a look with just the right touch of retaliatory malice and limped away.
* * *
Kris watched Adam walk forward and drop into his regular seat. Conversation faltered and then stopped completely. From the front of the bus, Geoff looked up from his phone. Samantha had been the regular handler on the men’s bus, but today it was Geoff. Bet that’s because of Adam.
Adam took out his MP3 player and got the earbuds into place. Put it on Shuffle and closed his eyes.
* * *
At the venue, the effect of the morning’s events was obvious. Voices were subdued, eyes avoided direct contact with Adam, and everyone left he and Kris in their own little bubble. Geoff seemed to have a job that never got completed about 20 feet away. The one exception was Allison, who sat on the arm of Adam’s chair and brought him things to eat.
“Baby, I am gonna weigh three-hundred pounds!” he told her, looking at the cheesecake chunks she was holding out to him.
“You are so skinny! You lost so much weight! You need to eat! Come on. Come on.”
Adam laughed and ate a piece of cheesecake, and Kris smiled. Allison didn’t act like Adam had a disease or that he might go insane at any moment, and it was good for him to be able to interact with someone who treated him as if he were normal. However, Kris thought it was just as well that none of the others tried it, since very little had materially changed, and inside Adam had to be much as he had been.
What the hell am I doing? How do I help him?
The thing that disturbed Kris the most about everything that had happened was the screaming. It was a sound he’d never heard, a rending pain he could still feel like a tremor in his bones. Whatever was living in Adam’s mind, how did you remove something that deep?
I have no idea how to get him over it. Do people recover from things like that? I’m supposed to get him to communicate. But he lied when Geoff asked him about it. He lied when Chien asked. He lies when people ask him if he can remember the accident.
Of course he came to me to talk about it. And I asked him to leave.
I was afraid. Of what? What the hell am I really afraid of?
Will he talk to me about it now? He wanted to once. If I can get him to trust me, maybe he will again. Would it help? Would it help if he did talk about it? Don’t people talk about horrible things to get them out, to get over them? I need to get him to trust me. He’s got to know he’s safe with me. But I’ve got to deal with this problem of mine.
I’ve got to either get over it, or get over being scared of it.
Adam had finished his cheesecake and curled up in the chair and apparently fallen immediately asleep. Allison had settled quietly against his chair and was silently checking messages on her phone.
Watching him sleeping, long legs tangled trying to fit in the confines of the chair, Kris felt a surge of affection and desire. There was no fighting it. It had gone beyond something he could pretend to drive out of existence.
His only hope was that the infatuation would burn itself out. Crushes were tenuous things that sometimes vanished from dawn to dusk.
Or. It could become stronger. Uh-huh. That thought produced something like panic.
Maybe I should stop fighting it. Just give in. What would he do if I told him how I felt?
That panic was even worse. As inebriating as his dreams about Adam had been, he suspected that the reality of Adam in his bed would be something totally different. Desire collided head-on in his brain with a lifetime of aversion conditioning. You don’t touch other men. You don’t get intimate with other men. You just don’t.
I don’t know what kind of hell Adam’s in, but this one is pretty special too.
It’s just a feeling, you know. You don’t have to act on every feeling you get. Just ride it out.
So to speak. A succession of different images presented themselves.
He dropped his head onto his arm in misery.
* * *
Kris climbed onto the bus, stupid with exhaustion. The events of the day, finishing with the performance, had wiped him out. Adam looked just as bad, crawling up into his bunk without a word. Kris shoved a cup of water and a pill through the curtains, and Adam took them with a guttural sound that could have meant anything from “thank you” to “go die somewhere.”
“Mm-mmm,” Kris mumbled and rolled into his own bunk. He fell asleep without bothering to pull up the covers. The bus engine, his own personal lullaby, played soothingly.
* * *
As the miles went by, Kris’ body rested. He descended through the phases of sleep. And as he recovered, he drifted up into REM sleep and began to dream.
It was warm. Close. He was rocked by an arm around his waist. He felt someone at his back, bumping against him gently.
He rolled over, mildly aroused, to face this lover. A sweet, spicy scent came from the sheets.
It was so dark. He could only see pale skin. A barely visible face, eyes lined with something dark and hair that was part of the blackness.
His fingers wanted to touch that pale skin, and he reached out. But his hand was caught by another and their fingers meshed. Gleaming black nails took his hand up to the face that was just a lighter spot in the darkness. His fingers were taken suddenly into a hot, soft mouth.
Arousal shot through him.
The mouth moved up and down over his fingers. A tongue worked them. He heard the light, wet sound of licking.
He grabbed the pale shoulders and shoved them back onto the bed, and mounted that barely-seen face with its searing mouth.
He felt the black-nailed fingers on him. They were warm and skillful, guiding him. He drove into the mouth, and his body snaked as it reacted to the grasp of the tongue, the lips, the throat.
Only seconds passed before he released with violent pleasure into that mouth.
* * *
The sedative barely extended Adam’s sleep. Tired as he had been, he lay awake after only two hours. The bus had a hundred different sounds. The high whine of the tires, the diffused rush of wind around the giant body of the vehicle. Suspension, axles, engine, the creak of bunks.
Little whispers that seemed to come from everywhere.
He drove the thought away, and his fingers tightened on the blanket.
I’m not alone. There are people here. Kris is here.
He had a sudden conviction that the bus was rocketing through the night entirely empty, except for him.
That’s ridiculous.
The whole bus is full of people. Happy, strong people.
A night-smudged image of every bunk occupied by a corpse. Cold, empty-eyed, life long-fled.
Not true! Not true!
The bus bounced. The tires made a sshhh-ing sound. The wind made a sshhh-ing sound. Inside his bunk was a sshhh sound.
Go away! Go away!
It’s not real.
Soft as air, soft as a breath: “Please…”
Not real not real not real.
Unable to control the guilt and horror, he put his head under his covers, his whole body rigid.
The miles went by. Every hiss of tires, every rush of wind reawakening the whispers.
After an hour he was almost numb, adrenalin exhausted. Below him, Kris let out a long, low moan, and he never heard it.
-------------------
To be continued...
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 12
On the bus, Adam went straight to his bunk and pulled the curtains. They’d been on the road only five minutes when he heard Kris’ say his name softly. What a gorgeous voice he has. The jerk.
“Yeah?” Adam said resentfully.
The curtain parted and a head appeared. Scruffy hair and serious brown eyes. Adam struggled to stay offended, but couldn’t hold on to the feeling. It was too obvious how upset Kris was at the thought he’d hurt him. Adam propped on an elbow.
“I’m sorry-“ Kris began.
“Forget it. People want to know. I sure as hell would.”
Kris’ face always revealed everything, and right now it revealed surprise. Adam gave a humorless snort. Kris must’ve expected a very different reaction. I’m surprised too. All of a sudden I decide to be reasonable? That really is crazy. So that’s what ‘unstable’ means. Interesting. I wonder what’s next?
“You know what, I don’t feel like lying down” he announced and sat up, pushing the curtains back.
Kris gave him room, but glanced worriedly toward the front of the bus. Adam made the mistake of forgetting his injured leg when he hopped down from the bunk and froze for a moment, waiting for the pain to subside. He was aware of Kris standing there, a hand suspended on its way to him.
“I’m fine,” Adam said with enough bite to back most people to the wall.
Kris didn’t back up. He only smiled and lowered his hand. “You know what? If you’ll stop saying that, I’ll stop saying everything’s okay.”
Adam straightened. Every time he thought he had Kris summed up, the man surprised him. “Well,” he said with as much attitude as he could manage, “I can’t promise that. Cause right now the only thing that lets me function is saying I’m fine. If I can’t say that, I’m done. I won’t be able to say I’m not fine until I am fine. Got it?”
“Absolutely.” Kris patted him on the shoulder. “But don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”
“Fuck you.”
“You wish.”
For a moment they were back to normal. Adam gave him a look with just the right touch of retaliatory malice and limped away.
* * *
Kris watched Adam walk forward and drop into his regular seat. Conversation faltered and then stopped completely. From the front of the bus, Geoff looked up from his phone. Samantha had been the regular handler on the men’s bus, but today it was Geoff. Bet that’s because of Adam.
Adam took out his MP3 player and got the earbuds into place. Put it on Shuffle and closed his eyes.
* * *
At the venue, the effect of the morning’s events was obvious. Voices were subdued, eyes avoided direct contact with Adam, and everyone left he and Kris in their own little bubble. Geoff seemed to have a job that never got completed about 20 feet away. The one exception was Allison, who sat on the arm of Adam’s chair and brought him things to eat.
“Baby, I am gonna weigh three-hundred pounds!” he told her, looking at the cheesecake chunks she was holding out to him.
“You are so skinny! You lost so much weight! You need to eat! Come on. Come on.”
Adam laughed and ate a piece of cheesecake, and Kris smiled. Allison didn’t act like Adam had a disease or that he might go insane at any moment, and it was good for him to be able to interact with someone who treated him as if he were normal. However, Kris thought it was just as well that none of the others tried it, since very little had materially changed, and inside Adam had to be much as he had been.
What the hell am I doing? How do I help him?
The thing that disturbed Kris the most about everything that had happened was the screaming. It was a sound he’d never heard, a rending pain he could still feel like a tremor in his bones. Whatever was living in Adam’s mind, how did you remove something that deep?
I have no idea how to get him over it. Do people recover from things like that? I’m supposed to get him to communicate. But he lied when Geoff asked him about it. He lied when Chien asked. He lies when people ask him if he can remember the accident.
Of course he came to me to talk about it. And I asked him to leave.
I was afraid. Of what? What the hell am I really afraid of?
Will he talk to me about it now? He wanted to once. If I can get him to trust me, maybe he will again. Would it help? Would it help if he did talk about it? Don’t people talk about horrible things to get them out, to get over them? I need to get him to trust me. He’s got to know he’s safe with me. But I’ve got to deal with this problem of mine.
I’ve got to either get over it, or get over being scared of it.
Adam had finished his cheesecake and curled up in the chair and apparently fallen immediately asleep. Allison had settled quietly against his chair and was silently checking messages on her phone.
Watching him sleeping, long legs tangled trying to fit in the confines of the chair, Kris felt a surge of affection and desire. There was no fighting it. It had gone beyond something he could pretend to drive out of existence.
His only hope was that the infatuation would burn itself out. Crushes were tenuous things that sometimes vanished from dawn to dusk.
Or. It could become stronger. Uh-huh. That thought produced something like panic.
Maybe I should stop fighting it. Just give in. What would he do if I told him how I felt?
That panic was even worse. As inebriating as his dreams about Adam had been, he suspected that the reality of Adam in his bed would be something totally different. Desire collided head-on in his brain with a lifetime of aversion conditioning. You don’t touch other men. You don’t get intimate with other men. You just don’t.
I don’t know what kind of hell Adam’s in, but this one is pretty special too.
It’s just a feeling, you know. You don’t have to act on every feeling you get. Just ride it out.
So to speak. A succession of different images presented themselves.
He dropped his head onto his arm in misery.
* * *
Kris climbed onto the bus, stupid with exhaustion. The events of the day, finishing with the performance, had wiped him out. Adam looked just as bad, crawling up into his bunk without a word. Kris shoved a cup of water and a pill through the curtains, and Adam took them with a guttural sound that could have meant anything from “thank you” to “go die somewhere.”
“Mm-mmm,” Kris mumbled and rolled into his own bunk. He fell asleep without bothering to pull up the covers. The bus engine, his own personal lullaby, played soothingly.
* * *
As the miles went by, Kris’ body rested. He descended through the phases of sleep. And as he recovered, he drifted up into REM sleep and began to dream.
It was warm. Close. He was rocked by an arm around his waist. He felt someone at his back, bumping against him gently.
He rolled over, mildly aroused, to face this lover. A sweet, spicy scent came from the sheets.
It was so dark. He could only see pale skin. A barely visible face, eyes lined with something dark and hair that was part of the blackness.
His fingers wanted to touch that pale skin, and he reached out. But his hand was caught by another and their fingers meshed. Gleaming black nails took his hand up to the face that was just a lighter spot in the darkness. His fingers were taken suddenly into a hot, soft mouth.
Arousal shot through him.
The mouth moved up and down over his fingers. A tongue worked them. He heard the light, wet sound of licking.
He grabbed the pale shoulders and shoved them back onto the bed, and mounted that barely-seen face with its searing mouth.
He felt the black-nailed fingers on him. They were warm and skillful, guiding him. He drove into the mouth, and his body snaked as it reacted to the grasp of the tongue, the lips, the throat.
Only seconds passed before he released with violent pleasure into that mouth.
* * *
The sedative barely extended Adam’s sleep. Tired as he had been, he lay awake after only two hours. The bus had a hundred different sounds. The high whine of the tires, the diffused rush of wind around the giant body of the vehicle. Suspension, axles, engine, the creak of bunks.
Little whispers that seemed to come from everywhere.
He drove the thought away, and his fingers tightened on the blanket.
I’m not alone. There are people here. Kris is here.
He had a sudden conviction that the bus was rocketing through the night entirely empty, except for him.
That’s ridiculous.
The whole bus is full of people. Happy, strong people.
A night-smudged image of every bunk occupied by a corpse. Cold, empty-eyed, life long-fled.
Not true! Not true!
The bus bounced. The tires made a sshhh-ing sound. The wind made a sshhh-ing sound. Inside his bunk was a sshhh sound.
Go away! Go away!
It’s not real.
Soft as air, soft as a breath: “Please…”
Not real not real not real.
Unable to control the guilt and horror, he put his head under his covers, his whole body rigid.
The miles went by. Every hiss of tires, every rush of wind reawakening the whispers.
After an hour he was almost numb, adrenalin exhausted. Below him, Kris let out a long, low moan, and he never heard it.
-------------------
To be continued...