And This Most of All (Part One)
Title: And This Most of All
Author:
sweet_poeia
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Words: 4,500
Rating: PG-13
Written for
inbetweencabs who generously donated to
krisfansunite in exchange for this fic. She asked for futurefic with a little angst. Happy New Year, bb!
Adam has driven himself half crazy with the thought that he alters it a little every time. That the details become skewed, that the lines shift and are instantly redrawn in his mind, close but not quite the same. That every time he thinks of that night it slips a little further away. Beloved mutant memory.
Some things he thinks are for sure, like the soft grey shirt Kris was wearing, new and snug (for me) and the ring that wasn’t on Kris’s finger (in his pocket, in a drawer, in the New York harbor).
Sometimes ghosts of that memory catch him when he isn’t looking. Scotch is the smell of Kris’s breath, warm against his ear. Scotch is the smell of not kissing Kris.
The words sometimes tremble a little and threaten to fly loose, but he keeps them knotted on a string, like pearls. Meant to be. I want to try. Please, Adam. Please.
And this most of all: I think I’m in love with you.
He thinks these things are for sure. It’s what lies beneath them that shifts under examination.
***
When Adam meditates, he pictures the garden on the roof. That night the garden was moonlit, but in meditation it is washed with sun. He tells himself that makes it different and therefore okay. It was, after all, a beautiful place.
It was on top of a nondescript building. You wouldn’t expect it to be there. But somehow Kris had found it, had happened upon it during his exploration of the city and wanted to show Adam, so they slipped away from the hotel after the show. They were a little giddy as they snuck past security. Adam left a note on his pillow just in case, with a lipstick kiss and the promise to be back before dawn.
And he followed the boy.
How did Kris move so easily through those city streets? What of Conway had prepared him for this? When he jimmied the lock open, the look he gave Adam was pure mischief. He had pulled Adam through the wrought iron gate and closed it, and they had spent a silver hour under a willow tree that didn’t know it was in New York City. It behaved like a tree from fairy tales.
Kris pulled a flask from his jacket and they passed it back and forth. Adam didn’t want the scotch, really, but Kris’s lips had made the mouth of the flask irresistible.
“You should play the harmonica,” Adam had mused as he watched Kris’s fingers try chords in the grass. “You could have it with you wherever you go.” Kris had smiled, had plucked a blade of grass to make a whistle.
An hour of just being, Kris’s shoulder warm against his, and Adam didn’t know those minutes would be the last of their kind. When exactly did Kris’s eyes grow so intense? Had he planned to turn to Adam and offer his heart, carried the intention around in his pocket all day like a tiny velvet box? Or perhaps the idea had been lurking inside the flask, a surprise to them both.
Adam could make his voice sound a thousand different ways, but it had never sounded the way it did when he told Kris no, when he told him all the reasons for no.
“I see through that,” Kris said, which shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. Kris’s eyes were bright, moist. “A year. Come back in a year. To this place, and...just, say you will, if things are different.”
And a jolt of anger rushed through Adam at those words, because this was not an old movie, and things could never be different enough.
“Stop it, Kris.”
“Just say, Adam. Just say.” Kris’s voice was low and ragged against his ear.
They didn’t speak at all in the car Adam called to drive them back to the hotel.
***
Everyone noticed the change between them. No one mentioned it.
The end of a tour, Adam thought, was just like the end of a play. You clung to the people who had become family, and you meant to keep in touch because you couldn’t imagine them not being right there anymore. But other things quickly fill up the space they once occupied, like sand seeping in to fill every gap, and those people gradually slip away. Except for Allison, his Idol friendships became occasional, public things--birthday tweets and hugs on red carpets with cameras flashing all around, devouring every touch and smile.
There wasn’t even much of that with Kris. Even when they were in the same city, they were in different worlds.
Adam watched every interview, scanned Kris’s tweets, read a dozen meanings into each song lyric and thought, how has it come to this? His finger hovered over Kris’s name in his contacts, but he never touched.
The work, he thought, was enough. Things were as they should be.
Adam was in LA on the first anniversary of that night.
The night passed.
***
There was a bruise on Adam’s heart, a deep and shadowy thing. He wondered, Does he have one, too? He wondered, Am I the devil he shuts the door against?
Allison tried to set that fear to rest.
“He loves you, man. Look, can’t you just call him or something?”
“Not that simple, Allie.”
“Maybe it could be. If you let it.” She paused a moment. “He called you an angel. Said you were like his angel.”
Adam snorted. “That was last year, he was probably drunk, and I’m nobody’s--”
Allison interrupted. “It was last night. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but. There it is.” She fiddled with her bracelet. “Okay, he was maybe a little stoned. He calls sometimes when he’s like that. I guess ‘cause it’s the closest thing to calling you? I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around him. “And you really are an angel. Big dumbass.”
***
Two weeks before the second anniversary of that night, the separation was front page news. Adam was in New York with Neil, who was uncharacteristically tactful. Adam would almost have preferred the snark to Neil’s searching looks.
Adam went to the garden one day (but not the day). There were people there. An older couple sat on the little stone bench arguing comfortably about pigeons, and a teenage girl lounged under the tree listening to her iPod and eating pretzels. He knew the second she recognized him by the way she suddenly became still. He winked at her before he slipped away.
Just a garden. Just a tree.
He called Allison. “He’s pretty sad, but you know. It was going to happen.” She paused. “He’s Kris, right? He’s like, Zen or something.”
On the second anniversary, Adam lay in his bed at Neil’s place and wrote a dreadful song about a love that was never meant to be. He cursed his sentimentality. He cursed his silent phone. Then he woke up at 4:00 a.m. and said, enough. It was early dawn when he got there. The gate was locked, and he didn’t have Kris’s way with locks (the way they seemed to melt open for him, innocent Christian boy my ass), but Adam managed to climb over. He stood by the tree as the sun rose, looking for who knows what (a note in the branches, their initials on the trunk, a missing blade of grass) and not finding it.
He went back to LA.
***
It was kind of awful how much easier the third year was, Kris-wise. There was work, and there were weddings and babies. There was Leila’s breast cancer scare. There was Cheeks’s new show and Neil’s column in the Times. And Kris’s Grammy.
When Adam met him on the red carpet (because some fucker just had to orchestrate that, didn’t he) his heart stopped, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Hey, buddy!” as he hugged Kris smoothly, and they smiled for the cameras.
Before they parted, Kris’s smile was tight. “Long time.”
Adam nodded. “Congratulations! Awesome, I’m so happy for you!”
Kris studied him. “Let’s don’t do this.”
Adam’s smile froze. Someone called to Kris and he started to turn.
“Kris. Did you. Were you there?” Adam’s voice was high, uncertain.
Kris focused on a point in the distance. “Guess that means you weren’t.” He sighed. “Things sure are different now, huh?” He turned his gaze to the tattoo on Adam’s arm. “I wanted to call the album Infinity. The label wouldn’t let me. Because....” He reached out to briefly touch the shape on Adam’s arm. “I told them they must be a bunch of Glamberts if they even knew what your tattoos are.”
Adam watched as Kris turned abruptly and left. Infinity. A coincidence. A message. An ironic statement.
Still so maddening.
Still so fucking beautiful.
***
Adam didn’t dwell. Honestly, he didn’t. He didn’t pine. Or wallow. The fantasies were glimmers in his dreams, and when he hooked up, which was often, it wasn’t so that he could have a substitute. He didn’t target plaid-wearing guitar boys, and he didn’t go for the opposite of that, either. For long stretches he wouldn’t really think about Kris at all.
And then he would.
When he did, it was usually with a rush of something like anger followed by a dull ache. He told himself it was because Kris had fucked everything up.
He kept moving, because Adam was never still. He glanced in the rear view mirror from time to time. Just in case.
***
“So, what do you call a guy who was kind of an ass and called to say he’s sorry?”
Adam lay frozen in the dark, trying to crawl out of the dream. “Kris,” he breathed.
“Bingo.”
Adam’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. No dream, the phone felt cool and firm in his hand. He waited.
“Adam? You there?”
“Yeah. Here.”
“So. I really am sorry. For the Grammy’s, but mostly for. Everything. And I don’t know why it took me so long to tell you that. But I’m telling you now, and I hope, I really hope it’s not too late.”
“Early.”
“What?”
“Early. Four in the morning.”
“It’s...shit, are you--where are you?”
“Um. Ireland.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry, I--”
“Stop saying that, please.”
“Sorry. Shit. I’ll--can I--I’ll call back tomorrow. Or. No, yeah, tomorrow. Okay. Bye.”
Adam lay for a while with the phone against his ear. Finally, he squinted at the screen and went to his recent calls. Kris Allen. He stared at the words for a long time before he curled up around a pillow and called back.
“Adam?” Kris sounded breathless.
“Hey. I’m kind of up now.”
“Oh. Yeah. I’m s--”
“Don’t say it.”
Silence.
“Kris.”
More silence.
“I’m not. I mean, I’m glad you called.”
And it really was that easy, after all.
***
(Continued)
Author:
sweet_poeia
Pairing: Kris Allen/Adam Lambert
Words: 4,500
Rating: PG-13
Written for
inbetweencabs who generously donated to
krisfansunite in exchange for this fic. She asked for futurefic with a little angst. Happy New Year, bb!
Adam has driven himself half crazy with the thought that he alters it a little every time. That the details become skewed, that the lines shift and are instantly redrawn in his mind, close but not quite the same. That every time he thinks of that night it slips a little further away. Beloved mutant memory.
Some things he thinks are for sure, like the soft grey shirt Kris was wearing, new and snug (for me) and the ring that wasn’t on Kris’s finger (in his pocket, in a drawer, in the New York harbor).
Sometimes ghosts of that memory catch him when he isn’t looking. Scotch is the smell of Kris’s breath, warm against his ear. Scotch is the smell of not kissing Kris.
The words sometimes tremble a little and threaten to fly loose, but he keeps them knotted on a string, like pearls. Meant to be. I want to try. Please, Adam. Please.
And this most of all: I think I’m in love with you.
He thinks these things are for sure. It’s what lies beneath them that shifts under examination.
***
When Adam meditates, he pictures the garden on the roof. That night the garden was moonlit, but in meditation it is washed with sun. He tells himself that makes it different and therefore okay. It was, after all, a beautiful place.
It was on top of a nondescript building. You wouldn’t expect it to be there. But somehow Kris had found it, had happened upon it during his exploration of the city and wanted to show Adam, so they slipped away from the hotel after the show. They were a little giddy as they snuck past security. Adam left a note on his pillow just in case, with a lipstick kiss and the promise to be back before dawn.
And he followed the boy.
How did Kris move so easily through those city streets? What of Conway had prepared him for this? When he jimmied the lock open, the look he gave Adam was pure mischief. He had pulled Adam through the wrought iron gate and closed it, and they had spent a silver hour under a willow tree that didn’t know it was in New York City. It behaved like a tree from fairy tales.
Kris pulled a flask from his jacket and they passed it back and forth. Adam didn’t want the scotch, really, but Kris’s lips had made the mouth of the flask irresistible.
“You should play the harmonica,” Adam had mused as he watched Kris’s fingers try chords in the grass. “You could have it with you wherever you go.” Kris had smiled, had plucked a blade of grass to make a whistle.
An hour of just being, Kris’s shoulder warm against his, and Adam didn’t know those minutes would be the last of their kind. When exactly did Kris’s eyes grow so intense? Had he planned to turn to Adam and offer his heart, carried the intention around in his pocket all day like a tiny velvet box? Or perhaps the idea had been lurking inside the flask, a surprise to them both.
Adam could make his voice sound a thousand different ways, but it had never sounded the way it did when he told Kris no, when he told him all the reasons for no.
“I see through that,” Kris said, which shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. Kris’s eyes were bright, moist. “A year. Come back in a year. To this place, and...just, say you will, if things are different.”
And a jolt of anger rushed through Adam at those words, because this was not an old movie, and things could never be different enough.
“Stop it, Kris.”
“Just say, Adam. Just say.” Kris’s voice was low and ragged against his ear.
They didn’t speak at all in the car Adam called to drive them back to the hotel.
***
Everyone noticed the change between them. No one mentioned it.
The end of a tour, Adam thought, was just like the end of a play. You clung to the people who had become family, and you meant to keep in touch because you couldn’t imagine them not being right there anymore. But other things quickly fill up the space they once occupied, like sand seeping in to fill every gap, and those people gradually slip away. Except for Allison, his Idol friendships became occasional, public things--birthday tweets and hugs on red carpets with cameras flashing all around, devouring every touch and smile.
There wasn’t even much of that with Kris. Even when they were in the same city, they were in different worlds.
Adam watched every interview, scanned Kris’s tweets, read a dozen meanings into each song lyric and thought, how has it come to this? His finger hovered over Kris’s name in his contacts, but he never touched.
The work, he thought, was enough. Things were as they should be.
Adam was in LA on the first anniversary of that night.
The night passed.
***
There was a bruise on Adam’s heart, a deep and shadowy thing. He wondered, Does he have one, too? He wondered, Am I the devil he shuts the door against?
Allison tried to set that fear to rest.
“He loves you, man. Look, can’t you just call him or something?”
“Not that simple, Allie.”
“Maybe it could be. If you let it.” She paused a moment. “He called you an angel. Said you were like his angel.”
Adam snorted. “That was last year, he was probably drunk, and I’m nobody’s--”
Allison interrupted. “It was last night. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you, but. There it is.” She fiddled with her bracelet. “Okay, he was maybe a little stoned. He calls sometimes when he’s like that. I guess ‘cause it’s the closest thing to calling you? I don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around him. “And you really are an angel. Big dumbass.”
***
Two weeks before the second anniversary of that night, the separation was front page news. Adam was in New York with Neil, who was uncharacteristically tactful. Adam would almost have preferred the snark to Neil’s searching looks.
Adam went to the garden one day (but not the day). There were people there. An older couple sat on the little stone bench arguing comfortably about pigeons, and a teenage girl lounged under the tree listening to her iPod and eating pretzels. He knew the second she recognized him by the way she suddenly became still. He winked at her before he slipped away.
Just a garden. Just a tree.
He called Allison. “He’s pretty sad, but you know. It was going to happen.” She paused. “He’s Kris, right? He’s like, Zen or something.”
On the second anniversary, Adam lay in his bed at Neil’s place and wrote a dreadful song about a love that was never meant to be. He cursed his sentimentality. He cursed his silent phone. Then he woke up at 4:00 a.m. and said, enough. It was early dawn when he got there. The gate was locked, and he didn’t have Kris’s way with locks (the way they seemed to melt open for him, innocent Christian boy my ass), but Adam managed to climb over. He stood by the tree as the sun rose, looking for who knows what (a note in the branches, their initials on the trunk, a missing blade of grass) and not finding it.
He went back to LA.
***
It was kind of awful how much easier the third year was, Kris-wise. There was work, and there were weddings and babies. There was Leila’s breast cancer scare. There was Cheeks’s new show and Neil’s column in the Times. And Kris’s Grammy.
When Adam met him on the red carpet (because some fucker just had to orchestrate that, didn’t he) his heart stopped, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Hey, buddy!” as he hugged Kris smoothly, and they smiled for the cameras.
Before they parted, Kris’s smile was tight. “Long time.”
Adam nodded. “Congratulations! Awesome, I’m so happy for you!”
Kris studied him. “Let’s don’t do this.”
Adam’s smile froze. Someone called to Kris and he started to turn.
“Kris. Did you. Were you there?” Adam’s voice was high, uncertain.
Kris focused on a point in the distance. “Guess that means you weren’t.” He sighed. “Things sure are different now, huh?” He turned his gaze to the tattoo on Adam’s arm. “I wanted to call the album Infinity. The label wouldn’t let me. Because....” He reached out to briefly touch the shape on Adam’s arm. “I told them they must be a bunch of Glamberts if they even knew what your tattoos are.”
Adam watched as Kris turned abruptly and left. Infinity. A coincidence. A message. An ironic statement.
Still so maddening.
Still so fucking beautiful.
***
Adam didn’t dwell. Honestly, he didn’t. He didn’t pine. Or wallow. The fantasies were glimmers in his dreams, and when he hooked up, which was often, it wasn’t so that he could have a substitute. He didn’t target plaid-wearing guitar boys, and he didn’t go for the opposite of that, either. For long stretches he wouldn’t really think about Kris at all.
And then he would.
When he did, it was usually with a rush of something like anger followed by a dull ache. He told himself it was because Kris had fucked everything up.
He kept moving, because Adam was never still. He glanced in the rear view mirror from time to time. Just in case.
***
“So, what do you call a guy who was kind of an ass and called to say he’s sorry?”
Adam lay frozen in the dark, trying to crawl out of the dream. “Kris,” he breathed.
“Bingo.”
Adam’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. No dream, the phone felt cool and firm in his hand. He waited.
“Adam? You there?”
“Yeah. Here.”
“So. I really am sorry. For the Grammy’s, but mostly for. Everything. And I don’t know why it took me so long to tell you that. But I’m telling you now, and I hope, I really hope it’s not too late.”
“Early.”
“What?”
“Early. Four in the morning.”
“It’s...shit, are you--where are you?”
“Um. Ireland.”
“Shit. I’m so sorry, I--”
“Stop saying that, please.”
“Sorry. Shit. I’ll--can I--I’ll call back tomorrow. Or. No, yeah, tomorrow. Okay. Bye.”
Adam lay for a while with the phone against his ear. Finally, he squinted at the screen and went to his recent calls. Kris Allen. He stared at the words for a long time before he curled up around a pillow and called back.
“Adam?” Kris sounded breathless.
“Hey. I’m kind of up now.”
“Oh. Yeah. I’m s--”
“Don’t say it.”
Silence.
“Kris.”
More silence.
“I’m not. I mean, I’m glad you called.”
And it really was that easy, after all.
***
(Continued)