You're Not Human Tonight
FANDOM: American Idol
PAIRING: Adam/Kris
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 2,199
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: nothing described is real.
SUMMARY: A poolside conversation, a night in March 2009. Hollywood is a strange and frightening beast; reality TV more so.
NOTES: Humiliatingly overdue charity fic for daemonicangel. Title from a passage in Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a highly recommended look at the strangeness of Hollywood.
SNIPPET:
A Hollywood pool at night - speaking of cliches. Reality shows and America has spoken and the word star being brutally overused. Unoriginal observations like the stars don't even shine that bright in L.A. Because of the smog, right, but it's a metaphor too. A bad one. And he can feel himself doing it - there's always been that danger, there always is when you're a gay performer in WeHo, but it felt like a game, dress-up and masks, not like now that he's on TV and not just in California anymore. Sorry, Dorothy, but Kansas is scarier than Oz. Kansas is a world where he might be a scandal or a curiosity, and he's a symbol of something and he doesn't care, he doesn't owe it to anyone and he's not on a crusade, he just wants to fucking sing, but still what if he gets it wrong.
You're Not Human Tonight
Midnight at the mansion, or rather just before twelve right outside one of those rooms rich people have special names for, concrete under his palms not quite too harsh to lean back into, legs submerged in the pool. Sleepless nights with no cause for sleeplessness have always inspired in Adam a certain desire for precision, as though the blue-dark haziness of outlines barely illuminated can be combated with his own inner clarity.
No cause for sleeplessness except that he is living in the Idols Mansion and he just made tour which alone guarantees him more money than he's seen in his life and he managed to find a great song from the year of his birth and he knows he's going to kill it but he doesn't know if they'll get it but they didn't get Ring of Fire and he made it through anyway, that keeps happening and maybe it will continue and maybe this is, maybe he will, maybe he can -
No cause for sleeplessness except his entire life, right now.
A hazy outline of a person sips through the glass sliding door, solidifies into Kris, who (it must be said) is no ally to precision but is good company, which is more valuable even as the clock narrows the gap between tonight and tomorrow. Kris tenses and relaxes in one captivating motion.
"Shit, you scared me."
"You and half of America."
Kris doesn't respond to that, but when he moves to sit by Adam he does so with a slowness uncharacteristic to his body, and a faint frown as though at thoughts unreachable because fogged over, and Adam doesn't feel ignored. He rolls up both of his sweatpants, all the way above the knee, before scooting to the edge and dipping his feet in.
"Can't sleep?"
Kris tosses out phrases with an ease that recalls the automatic boy grace of caught footballs and arcing frisbees, the way his cotton T-shirts drape themselves around his neck and his smile when he thinks something is funny. None of this is ever dampened by Adam's presence perpetually trailing (he sometimes feels) afterimages of fishnets and dancing and an entirely different kind of late night. Two sets of cliches, co-existing peacefully, and Adam knows he respects himself too much to feel grateful for this but he does anyway, because he didn't get to pick the other finalists and he knows it could have been worse.
"Yeah," Adam says. "Just. Thinking. Not even. I don't know."
Kris nods. "Yeah. Pretty much."
They sit. Adam looks at Kris looking into the water, the pool's lights casting jellyfish streaks across his face. A Hollywood pool at night - speaking of cliches. Reality shows and America has spoken and the word star being brutally overused. Unoriginal observations like the stars don't even shine that bright in L.A. Because of the smog, right, but it's a metaphor too. A bad one. And he can feel himself doing it - there's always been that danger, there always is when you're a gay performer in WeHo, but it felt like a game, dress-up and masks, not like now that he's on TV and not just in California anymore. Sorry, Dorothy, but Kansas is scarier than Oz. Kansas is a world where he might be a scandal or a curiosity, and he's a symbol of something and he doesn't care, he doesn't owe it to anyone and he's not on a crusade, he just wants to fucking sing, but still what if he gets it wrong.
"Do you ever feel," he says, and stops. Kris turns to him, waiting, and Adam thinks, fuck it. He likes Kris, and he should learn sooner rather than later whether they could become actual friends. "Do you ever feel like, they're trying to turn us into these, these little types, putting us in these boxes, and mine isn't the worst box to be in but it's still a box, and do you ever feel like maybe. Like if enough people try to make you this thing, after a while you actually become it, this like, cartoon-character version of yourself and. I just want to be myself, I just want to stay myself even if, I mean, obviously I'm holding back on the show, because I'm not stupid, but I'm still trying to make sure I'm always me, and sometimes I don't know if I'm... I don't know." He shakes his head. "Sorry, you probably don't - I'm - sorry."
"What," Kris says, and elbows him, "like I can't think about this stuff because I'm just a dumb hick?"
Adam smiles. "I didn't - " he starts, even though he kind of did. Not that Kris is dumb, but maybe Adam's guilty too. Maybe it's just human to forget that people don't always think like how they look.
"I mean, I don't, much, but. Yeah. Thinking about like, who people think I am, and not like it's important, but it's still weird, and - I don't like it either, you know? It's fucking weird. And I'm not as good at it as you are."
"Maybe I'm too good," Adam says. "Maybe - "
"Don't start that," Kris says. "I don't think you even really think that. You can play the game. Doesn't mean you are the game."
"No one's ever going to see what I can do," Adam says. "Ring of Fire was the closest, and I can't risk it again. And I feel like I should, but."
"You're not stupid," Kris finishes. "And so what? It won't be the show forever, man."
It won't. One day the people who already love him will be voting with their wallets, which is the only vote that matters (in America, Cassidy adds in his head, and Brad whispers Cassidy needs to have better sex, and Adam was in love, then), and maybe when this is over he'll beat everyone to the punch and start saying stupid shit to the press just because. It'll be a different fake-Adam but at least he'll be someone who sometimes does stupid shit for the sake of it; at least that part will be honest, even if who knows whether they'll figure it out.
Adam says, "You're right."
"Always."
Tendrils of shadow dance across Kris's cheeks. The aquamarine of the pool, faded near the lights like underwater suns, is an artificial chlorinated pretty, but it's pretty, and the water feels good between his toes. Kris likes him well enough, and gives smart advice, and maybe privately he thinks Adam is weird but outside he was just being a friend. Suddenly he is a peaceful kind of tired, like after a really great show.
"So. That's, you know. My soul bared for the evening. Your turn." He's kidding, but also curious.
Kris worries at his bottom lip. Adam wonders what other tells sneak into his loose frame, if he picks at his cuticles and Adam hasn't noticed. "We were going to go to Boston."
"You and Katy?"
"For Valentine's Day. We couldn't really afford a vacation, but a friend of hers from college needed a house sitter 'cause they were going somewhere warm. And we'd never been to Boston. We've never." Slight kicks of water-blurred feet. "Like, we'd been skiing with my family, but - I don't know, it's kind of dumb, but Katy wanted to do something romantic in the snow." Eyes rolling, voice affectionately amused but a little rueful. Kris, too, is more complicated than TV allows. "'Cause we don't really get much of a winter down south. She had all these, I don't know. She really likes that movie Love Actually."
"I love that movie."
"I mean, it's okay," Kris allows. "So we were gonna, you know, wear mittens and drink hot chocolate and whatever. But. Then I wound up here. So." He scratches his neck. "I don't know. It's dumb."
"It's not dumb," Adam says. "I've never done anything romantic in winter. We don't get much of a winter here, either."
"Do you want to?"
Kris's foot brushes Adam's leg, just above the ankle, so accidental it doesn't seem Kris notices. "Yeah. I do. I want mittens and hot chocolate and, I don't know. Ice skating. I want it all. I want it fucking all, Kris, I want an album and a tour and dancers and so much glitter you could choke on it. I want to see the world and I want to kiss my boyfriend in the snow. I want to be a star." Is it a cliche, he wonders, if it's true, so true it burns.
"You have a boyfriend?"
"My hypothetical boyfriend." Who looks like Brad, right now, but maybe won't, some day. He hopes. He wants. He wants so many things, and not knowing which ones he can have is almost worse than knowing he can't have any. But only almost.
"Ah."
There are stars out here, but Adam doesn't see the big deal. They're just little white dots. He wants to be more than that, brighter and bigger, neon lights instead of nature's meek offerings.
"Well, hey. It won't be the show forever. And you can afford a vacation now. Next year you can go wherever the fuck you want for Valentine's Day. Boston. Maine. Alaska, how's that for a romantic winter. Haven't you always wanted to snuggle up to each other by the fireplace when it's dark out at like, eight in the morning?"
Kris laughs. "Kiss under a glacier."
"All the classics."
"You should be a travel agent."
"Excellent, a back-up plan in case this singing thing doesn't work out."
"It'll work out." Kris breathes deeply, looking at the sky. "And it won't be the show forever. And then it'll be better."
It fucking better be, Adam doesn't say. It has to be. "It will."
In the pool's light, waves of darkness undulating on Kris's skin bathed cerulean, Kris looks a little eerie and a little beautiful, somehow both haunted and serene. I contain multitudes, Adam thinks, and even if that's the only Whitman line he knows that's still more than the audience would give him credit for, but it's okay, because it'll be better. Even if they don't stop being surprised by things like that. He'll hold hands on a frozen rink with a boy he's in love with and he'll sing for people who love him. Suddenly this moment seems precious in the way things do on sleepless nights, with or without cause, when you're aching for significance. He wants to take the blue glow on Kris, which must also be on him, and keep it as a reminder of this strangely sweet piece of time. He looks at the technicolor-saturated Hollywood pool, as sparkling as Dorothy's slippers, and thinks of lights, camera, action, and thinks eerie and serene, and makes a note to talk to the tech crew about changing the set-up he'd proposed for Mad World. He has a new idea. Less exciting, but more him.
Kris yawns. Insomnia feels far away. "Ready to sleep?"
Kris nods sleepily. "Let's go."
***
Four years later it is Valentine's Day and they are in Massachusetts. Kris is tired of cities so they're far west of Boston, filled with trees and New England emptiness, painted in browns and russets and grays. Ice skating is on tomorrow's agenda; today is for the indoor comforts of winter, delights to California-dwelling travelers and necessities to the locals. There is hot chocolate.
Adam says, "Do you remember that time on Idol we were sitting by the pool telling each other how much better everything was going to be after the show?"
He isn't expecting a yes, having grown accustomed to bewildering Kris with his superior memory for conversations, but Kris says, "Yeah." He is propped up on his elbow, fingers splayed flat on Adam's bare chest. The inn's bed - an inn, New England is so charming - is fitted with soft sheets and three quilts, and Kris's sharp outline disappearing into the white one strikes Adam as something wonderful. "What about it?"
Adam rests his hand at the base of Kris's neck, enjoying the prickle of his hair. "Nothing, I guess." He slides his palm to the side of Kris's face. "I don't know." He lifts his chin just far enough to kiss Kris's lips, once, softly. "I guess it's just that that was the first night I felt like you and I could be friends."
Kris leans down to kiss him, once, slowly. "I thought we already were friends."
Last night they stood on the path the inn recommends for walks and marveled at being able to see their breath, even though it had ceased to be a novelty for either of them years ago, and Adam looked up and stared at how many more stars there were here, like by being so far from everything they were closer to the sky, and thought maybe he understood.
"We were," Adam says. "But I didn't know we could be."
Kris kisses him again, deep and gentle, and settles his head against Adam's heart. Their legs are tangled and outside snow is falling and everything is better and Adam is in love, now.
PAIRING: Adam/Kris
RATING: G
WORD COUNT: 2,199
WARNINGS: None
DISCLAIMER: nothing described is real.
SUMMARY: A poolside conversation, a night in March 2009. Hollywood is a strange and frightening beast; reality TV more so.
NOTES: Humiliatingly overdue charity fic for daemonicangel. Title from a passage in Raymond Chandler's The Little Sister, a highly recommended look at the strangeness of Hollywood.
SNIPPET:
A Hollywood pool at night - speaking of cliches. Reality shows and America has spoken and the word star being brutally overused. Unoriginal observations like the stars don't even shine that bright in L.A. Because of the smog, right, but it's a metaphor too. A bad one. And he can feel himself doing it - there's always been that danger, there always is when you're a gay performer in WeHo, but it felt like a game, dress-up and masks, not like now that he's on TV and not just in California anymore. Sorry, Dorothy, but Kansas is scarier than Oz. Kansas is a world where he might be a scandal or a curiosity, and he's a symbol of something and he doesn't care, he doesn't owe it to anyone and he's not on a crusade, he just wants to fucking sing, but still what if he gets it wrong.
You're Not Human Tonight
Midnight at the mansion, or rather just before twelve right outside one of those rooms rich people have special names for, concrete under his palms not quite too harsh to lean back into, legs submerged in the pool. Sleepless nights with no cause for sleeplessness have always inspired in Adam a certain desire for precision, as though the blue-dark haziness of outlines barely illuminated can be combated with his own inner clarity.
No cause for sleeplessness except that he is living in the Idols Mansion and he just made tour which alone guarantees him more money than he's seen in his life and he managed to find a great song from the year of his birth and he knows he's going to kill it but he doesn't know if they'll get it but they didn't get Ring of Fire and he made it through anyway, that keeps happening and maybe it will continue and maybe this is, maybe he will, maybe he can -
No cause for sleeplessness except his entire life, right now.
A hazy outline of a person sips through the glass sliding door, solidifies into Kris, who (it must be said) is no ally to precision but is good company, which is more valuable even as the clock narrows the gap between tonight and tomorrow. Kris tenses and relaxes in one captivating motion.
"Shit, you scared me."
"You and half of America."
Kris doesn't respond to that, but when he moves to sit by Adam he does so with a slowness uncharacteristic to his body, and a faint frown as though at thoughts unreachable because fogged over, and Adam doesn't feel ignored. He rolls up both of his sweatpants, all the way above the knee, before scooting to the edge and dipping his feet in.
"Can't sleep?"
Kris tosses out phrases with an ease that recalls the automatic boy grace of caught footballs and arcing frisbees, the way his cotton T-shirts drape themselves around his neck and his smile when he thinks something is funny. None of this is ever dampened by Adam's presence perpetually trailing (he sometimes feels) afterimages of fishnets and dancing and an entirely different kind of late night. Two sets of cliches, co-existing peacefully, and Adam knows he respects himself too much to feel grateful for this but he does anyway, because he didn't get to pick the other finalists and he knows it could have been worse.
"Yeah," Adam says. "Just. Thinking. Not even. I don't know."
Kris nods. "Yeah. Pretty much."
They sit. Adam looks at Kris looking into the water, the pool's lights casting jellyfish streaks across his face. A Hollywood pool at night - speaking of cliches. Reality shows and America has spoken and the word star being brutally overused. Unoriginal observations like the stars don't even shine that bright in L.A. Because of the smog, right, but it's a metaphor too. A bad one. And he can feel himself doing it - there's always been that danger, there always is when you're a gay performer in WeHo, but it felt like a game, dress-up and masks, not like now that he's on TV and not just in California anymore. Sorry, Dorothy, but Kansas is scarier than Oz. Kansas is a world where he might be a scandal or a curiosity, and he's a symbol of something and he doesn't care, he doesn't owe it to anyone and he's not on a crusade, he just wants to fucking sing, but still what if he gets it wrong.
"Do you ever feel," he says, and stops. Kris turns to him, waiting, and Adam thinks, fuck it. He likes Kris, and he should learn sooner rather than later whether they could become actual friends. "Do you ever feel like, they're trying to turn us into these, these little types, putting us in these boxes, and mine isn't the worst box to be in but it's still a box, and do you ever feel like maybe. Like if enough people try to make you this thing, after a while you actually become it, this like, cartoon-character version of yourself and. I just want to be myself, I just want to stay myself even if, I mean, obviously I'm holding back on the show, because I'm not stupid, but I'm still trying to make sure I'm always me, and sometimes I don't know if I'm... I don't know." He shakes his head. "Sorry, you probably don't - I'm - sorry."
"What," Kris says, and elbows him, "like I can't think about this stuff because I'm just a dumb hick?"
Adam smiles. "I didn't - " he starts, even though he kind of did. Not that Kris is dumb, but maybe Adam's guilty too. Maybe it's just human to forget that people don't always think like how they look.
"I mean, I don't, much, but. Yeah. Thinking about like, who people think I am, and not like it's important, but it's still weird, and - I don't like it either, you know? It's fucking weird. And I'm not as good at it as you are."
"Maybe I'm too good," Adam says. "Maybe - "
"Don't start that," Kris says. "I don't think you even really think that. You can play the game. Doesn't mean you are the game."
"No one's ever going to see what I can do," Adam says. "Ring of Fire was the closest, and I can't risk it again. And I feel like I should, but."
"You're not stupid," Kris finishes. "And so what? It won't be the show forever, man."
It won't. One day the people who already love him will be voting with their wallets, which is the only vote that matters (in America, Cassidy adds in his head, and Brad whispers Cassidy needs to have better sex, and Adam was in love, then), and maybe when this is over he'll beat everyone to the punch and start saying stupid shit to the press just because. It'll be a different fake-Adam but at least he'll be someone who sometimes does stupid shit for the sake of it; at least that part will be honest, even if who knows whether they'll figure it out.
Adam says, "You're right."
"Always."
Tendrils of shadow dance across Kris's cheeks. The aquamarine of the pool, faded near the lights like underwater suns, is an artificial chlorinated pretty, but it's pretty, and the water feels good between his toes. Kris likes him well enough, and gives smart advice, and maybe privately he thinks Adam is weird but outside he was just being a friend. Suddenly he is a peaceful kind of tired, like after a really great show.
"So. That's, you know. My soul bared for the evening. Your turn." He's kidding, but also curious.
Kris worries at his bottom lip. Adam wonders what other tells sneak into his loose frame, if he picks at his cuticles and Adam hasn't noticed. "We were going to go to Boston."
"You and Katy?"
"For Valentine's Day. We couldn't really afford a vacation, but a friend of hers from college needed a house sitter 'cause they were going somewhere warm. And we'd never been to Boston. We've never." Slight kicks of water-blurred feet. "Like, we'd been skiing with my family, but - I don't know, it's kind of dumb, but Katy wanted to do something romantic in the snow." Eyes rolling, voice affectionately amused but a little rueful. Kris, too, is more complicated than TV allows. "'Cause we don't really get much of a winter down south. She had all these, I don't know. She really likes that movie Love Actually."
"I love that movie."
"I mean, it's okay," Kris allows. "So we were gonna, you know, wear mittens and drink hot chocolate and whatever. But. Then I wound up here. So." He scratches his neck. "I don't know. It's dumb."
"It's not dumb," Adam says. "I've never done anything romantic in winter. We don't get much of a winter here, either."
"Do you want to?"
Kris's foot brushes Adam's leg, just above the ankle, so accidental it doesn't seem Kris notices. "Yeah. I do. I want mittens and hot chocolate and, I don't know. Ice skating. I want it all. I want it fucking all, Kris, I want an album and a tour and dancers and so much glitter you could choke on it. I want to see the world and I want to kiss my boyfriend in the snow. I want to be a star." Is it a cliche, he wonders, if it's true, so true it burns.
"You have a boyfriend?"
"My hypothetical boyfriend." Who looks like Brad, right now, but maybe won't, some day. He hopes. He wants. He wants so many things, and not knowing which ones he can have is almost worse than knowing he can't have any. But only almost.
"Ah."
There are stars out here, but Adam doesn't see the big deal. They're just little white dots. He wants to be more than that, brighter and bigger, neon lights instead of nature's meek offerings.
"Well, hey. It won't be the show forever. And you can afford a vacation now. Next year you can go wherever the fuck you want for Valentine's Day. Boston. Maine. Alaska, how's that for a romantic winter. Haven't you always wanted to snuggle up to each other by the fireplace when it's dark out at like, eight in the morning?"
Kris laughs. "Kiss under a glacier."
"All the classics."
"You should be a travel agent."
"Excellent, a back-up plan in case this singing thing doesn't work out."
"It'll work out." Kris breathes deeply, looking at the sky. "And it won't be the show forever. And then it'll be better."
It fucking better be, Adam doesn't say. It has to be. "It will."
In the pool's light, waves of darkness undulating on Kris's skin bathed cerulean, Kris looks a little eerie and a little beautiful, somehow both haunted and serene. I contain multitudes, Adam thinks, and even if that's the only Whitman line he knows that's still more than the audience would give him credit for, but it's okay, because it'll be better. Even if they don't stop being surprised by things like that. He'll hold hands on a frozen rink with a boy he's in love with and he'll sing for people who love him. Suddenly this moment seems precious in the way things do on sleepless nights, with or without cause, when you're aching for significance. He wants to take the blue glow on Kris, which must also be on him, and keep it as a reminder of this strangely sweet piece of time. He looks at the technicolor-saturated Hollywood pool, as sparkling as Dorothy's slippers, and thinks of lights, camera, action, and thinks eerie and serene, and makes a note to talk to the tech crew about changing the set-up he'd proposed for Mad World. He has a new idea. Less exciting, but more him.
Kris yawns. Insomnia feels far away. "Ready to sleep?"
Kris nods sleepily. "Let's go."
***
Four years later it is Valentine's Day and they are in Massachusetts. Kris is tired of cities so they're far west of Boston, filled with trees and New England emptiness, painted in browns and russets and grays. Ice skating is on tomorrow's agenda; today is for the indoor comforts of winter, delights to California-dwelling travelers and necessities to the locals. There is hot chocolate.
Adam says, "Do you remember that time on Idol we were sitting by the pool telling each other how much better everything was going to be after the show?"
He isn't expecting a yes, having grown accustomed to bewildering Kris with his superior memory for conversations, but Kris says, "Yeah." He is propped up on his elbow, fingers splayed flat on Adam's bare chest. The inn's bed - an inn, New England is so charming - is fitted with soft sheets and three quilts, and Kris's sharp outline disappearing into the white one strikes Adam as something wonderful. "What about it?"
Adam rests his hand at the base of Kris's neck, enjoying the prickle of his hair. "Nothing, I guess." He slides his palm to the side of Kris's face. "I don't know." He lifts his chin just far enough to kiss Kris's lips, once, softly. "I guess it's just that that was the first night I felt like you and I could be friends."
Kris leans down to kiss him, once, slowly. "I thought we already were friends."
Last night they stood on the path the inn recommends for walks and marveled at being able to see their breath, even though it had ceased to be a novelty for either of them years ago, and Adam looked up and stared at how many more stars there were here, like by being so far from everything they were closer to the sky, and thought maybe he understood.
"We were," Adam says. "But I didn't know we could be."
Kris kisses him again, deep and gentle, and settles his head against Adam's heart. Their legs are tangled and outside snow is falling and everything is better and Adam is in love, now.