Take You Home: Chapter One
Title: Take You Home
Author: Ninalyn/technicolornina
Fandom: Adam Lambert
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Oscar Wilde, Constance Wilde,
Word Count: 2816
Spoilers: AHAHAHA nnnnnnnnnnnnnnot really.
Story Rating: R for safety? Not sure it'll get above PG-13.
Chapter Rating: PG-13 for Adam's mouth.
Story Summary: Adam doesn't know how he got here or what he's supposed to do, but he's got to get home--preferably before falling for the cute Irish married man.
Disclaimer: Tweet this to the people whose fictitious avatars are involved and I will so disown/cut/block you so damned fast. If you are one of the people whose fictitious avatars are involved, it's all in fun and I don't think anybody believes a word of it (including me), so don't hate me, please?
Notes: I didn't shy away from representing life in 1889 as accurately as I could. Therefore, if you have issues with casual prejudices, racial slurs, hypocritical morals, infidelity, misogyny, and abuse of the French, this is not the story for you. Give it a pass and see you on the flip-flop? In the meantime, if you do choose to read it, please don't make nasty comments about subjects that aren't particularly kosher today but were accepted facts of life in Victorian times. K? Thanks.
Feedback: I really do appreciate it when I get it, so if you care to make an author happy, please do.
Special Thanks/Dedications: For the original requester on glam_kink. Hope it all turns out to your satisfaction!
He doesn't remember coming home.
He doesn't remember going home with anyone else, either, but he's in a bed he's pretty sure isn't his, and he had to get there somehow. Given that his head feels like he spent his night slamming it into the sidewalk, he's guessing it was under his own power while very, very drunk.
Except he also can't remember drinking anything. And he's fully clothed. In multiple layers, even. And the top one looks like it might be a tuxedo vest. Not exactly how he'd expect waking up in somebody else's bed to end.
Something bright flashes near his still-closed eyes, and he groans and tries to pull away. Someone forces his eye open, and then Adam-Adam? Yeah, Adam-is staring painfully at what he's pretty sure is a candle.
"Mr. Lambert?" The guy is British, or doing a damned good job of pretending he is. "Mr. Adam Lambert, is that your name, sir?"
"Yeah," Adam breathes, because any more than breathing is going to split his head in two. "Yeah, I'm Adam."
He thinks the guy in the suit frowns at him, but it's hard to tell, because everything is blurry. "Mr. Lambert, could you identify your place of residence for me, please?"
"I'm from WeHo," he says. Now he can tell Mr. Black Suit is frowning. Must not be from LA. Maybe he really is British. Adam opens his mouth again and tries to remember what WeHo is short for.
"I took his name from his passport," says another voice, not exactly British but not quite Irish either. "He's American. From California, or so it would appear."
"Los Angeles," Adam supplies, and then what he was looking for snaps into place and he spits it out before he can forget again "West Hollywood. WeHo is West Hollywood."
"My name is Doctor Stanton, Mr. Lambert," Black Suit says. "You took a fall in the street. Could you tell us where you're residing while you're in London?"
"London?" What happened to-wherever I was? A museum, in a city that wasn't London, with his brother . . . but which city? Was he on tour or on vacation? He can't remember.
"You don't remember being in London, Mr. Lambert?" asks Sanford or Samhain or whatever the guy's name is, Adam knows he was just told and normally he's totally sick with names but this one is completely eluding him, and he shakes his head just a little and winces.
"No," he answers, and gets the kind of disapproving "mmm" he knows from doctors in at least six different countries. Sniffles or sprained ankle, it's always the same: "mmm," and then a stiff little prescription pad and orders to rest and really, Mr. Lambert, Adam, that means rest, none of this sleeping an extra hour at night and working the rest of the time stuff.
The second voice is murmuring words Adam can't make out, and then he hears Santorum (Sanderson? Sandman? No, that's a song, not a name) say "It seems most likely to be a concussion. There's often amnesia in such cases-passing, and mild. I can arrange for him to be moved to hospital if you prefer, but if you could keep him here for a day or two until, perhaps, he remembers where he planned to stay-"
Adam lets his eyes slide shut-what the hell, it's not like he can see anything even when they're open anyway-and when he opens them again there's just a single man in the room, staring intently down at him.
"I hope you'll forgive my having taken the liberty of examining your pocketbook," the man says, and tosses his hair out of his face. "It was imperative that we know your name."
"It's cool," Adam tells him, wondering when he got a pocketbook, and when the man's brows knit together Adam waves a hand. "Fine. I mean. It's okay." He shuts his eyes again, not so much out of tiredness as because the light fixture, which looks like an absolutely sick reproduction of a gaslight, is way too bright for him. "I'm in-" And he knows he was told this, but that slipped his mind, too.
"London," the man tells him. "England. There was something of an altercation across the way. You were pushed to the ground by a ruffian attempting to abuse a young woman on her way into the milliner's. You remember nothing at all?"
I don't even know what the fuck a milner's is, Adam thinks but doesn't say. Instead, "No." And then, "I was out with friends. We were in Manhattan." And that's it, they were at a museum, even Neil was excited because it was one of those little hidden pockets of New York Adam doesn't know shit-all about and Neil knew Adam would love, they were doing an exhibit on-
"This is highly irregular," the man says. "But I suppose it can't be helped. Dr. Stanton was of the opinion you'd be best served by staying here until you've recovered yourself, and to be quite honest, I must say I agree." He holds out a hand, and Adam pushes himself up to sitting enough to take it. He's with the programme just enough to realise his nail polish is completely and totally gone. And then he really sails off the edge of the world.
"Mr. Oscar Wilde, at your service, Mr. Lambert," the man says.
---------------------
"Vyvyan," Constance Wilde warns, and Adam watches the younger of the two Wilde boys slow from a run through the drawing-room to a crawling kind of walk.
"But Mother-"
"What have I told you about that word in gentleman's language, Vyvyan?" she asks, and Adam could almost smile-she sounds like his mother, only Irish. Some things really don't ever change. "We have a guest. Sit or go to the nursery." She turns to Adam with a tiny, uncomfortably formal smile. "Apologies, Mr. Lambert. His governess is the most abominable little French girl. She's frightfully lax with him at times."
Adam smiles back and reminds himself he can't use "cool" here. "It's fine. I think we're a little more casual out West than you are here." He hopes it's enough to cover for having not had the slightest idea how to act at the dinner table; once upon a time he knew Victorian table manners, but apparently they got fell out of his head with damned near everything else when he got literally knocked silly, and the best he could do was pull together his 21st-century formal manners and hope it was close enough. He didn't get tossed out on his ear, at least, so he's guessing he at least managed to not be actively offensive. Mrs. Wilde smiles again.
"Yes, you're one of our American cousins, aren't you?" she says, and adopts an expression far too interested for Adam's comfort. "I don't suppose you've ever seen any Red Indians, living in California, have you?"
The hell? "Red Indians?"
"Savages," she elaborates, like that explains everything. "Or-I suppose calling them savages has gone out of fashion, hasn't it? Primitives, perhaps-one would think they'd invent a better word for a group of people who go round dressed in nothing but feathers and animal hides."
Native Americans? Adam thinks, and shakes his head. "I've met a few, ma'am, but the ones I know dress just like everybody else." Adam digs into his memories of high school history and pulls out a piece of information he can pass off as relevant. "After the-" He stops himself just before he spits out Civil War. There was a different term in the 19th century. He knows there was. Finally he just says "the war" and hopes he's remembering right that America wasn't involved in any between 1865 and 1918. "President Johnson set up training schools. To integrate them into white society." And because he's getting a look from Mrs. Wilde that suggests he's starting to sound too 2011 again, he forces himself to spit out a platitude that would leave most of his friends tearing out their hair screaming. "I guess the theory is a red-skinned man can swing a sledge just as well as a white one." Please don't let the railroad across the country be finished already.
"Are you harassing Mr. Lambert about Red Indians, Constance?" Wilde asks, as he comes in with a pair of brandy glasses and hands one to Adam. "Next you'll be wanting him to tell you Negro tales."
Adam bites his tongue. This is October 1889, if you're believing the London Times. Get used to it. Constance Wilde makes a noise.
"Oh, one can hear those tiresome stories anywhere," she protests. "But one almost never meets a man who's truly met a Red Indian to speak of, and it's impossible to know when you might need the knowledge."
Wilde takes his seat and raises his glass. "Your good and restored health, Mr. Lambert."
Adam raises his own. "And yours, Mr. Wilde." At least as long as you've still got it, he thinks. Then he realises they're waiting for him to drink first.
Adam's never had brandy in his life.
It can't be that hard. It's drinking, not rocket science.
Adam tries to examine his glass as fast as he can in his peripheral vision. There can't be more than a shot in the glass, but he's guessing tossing it back like a belt of whiskey isn't the approved method of drinking it, especially in mixed company. He thinks he remembers how they did this in some of the old 1940s films he fell madly in love with when he was 14, and hoping he's not about to make a complete fool of himself he swirls the brandy around the bottom of the glass and takes a sip, breathing a sigh of relief when Wilde follows suit and then tells both boys-Vyvyan squirming on his seat-to wash and go to the nursery.
"I sent round to the hotels in the neighbourhood," Wilde says, when the boys are gone. "I'm afraid I wasn't able to recover your effects. None of them seem to have any record of you having reserved a room. I don't suppose your trunk was in your carriage?"
Trunk? Adam shakes his head. "I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"I suspected as much," Wilde answers. "No matter. I can send to the company tomorrow and make an inquiry. The police should have the cab number."
"A shame for this to happen when you'd just got here," Constance Wilde says in her blurred Irish accent. "I do hope you won't think the less of London for it."
"You've been more than kind enough to make up for the inconvenience," Adam answers, and as he receives a warm smile in return he thinks Jane Austen, I love you. "I'm just sorry to have troubled you this way."
"Not at all," Wilde protests. "Every man should take care of his fellow." He glances across at his wife, and she sets her cup on the table beside her.
"I've had the maid see to your room," she says. "It should be in order, but if there's anything you need please don't hesitate a moment to ask."
"Thank you, ma'am," Adam answers, and as the Wildes stand up he follows suit. "You're both too kind."
"Nonsense," Mrs. Wilde tells him. "Come-I'll see you to your room."
Adam wants to point out that he spent most of the day in the room she's doubtless taking him to-or rather, as he's pretty convinced, he's spent his day believing himself to be in a reproduction of a room he saw in a museum where he apparently fell and whacked his head, and in reality he's in a hospital room somewhere in New York and Neil is waiting for him to wake up. But he's not sure hallucinations enjoy being reminded they're hallucinations, and even if it is a hallucination it looks very cold and wet outside the drawing-room windows, and he'd rather be hallucinating being warm and dry than soaked and freezing.
And so he simply lets her lead him down the hall, one hand on his arm, speaking in her soft Irish accent about a party tomorrow Adam couldn't care less about because by tomorrow he's going to be waking up in New York with an IV stuck somewhere unpleasant, and then they're stopping outside the door of the room and she's looking up at him.
"Mr. Lambert," she says, and Adam tries to identify the statement behind the cool address.
"Yes, ma'am?"
She gasps a little and pulls her hand back from his arm, glancing away. "Good evening, Mr. Lambert."
"The same to you, ma'am," he tells her, as she hurries off down the hallway, and he slides into the room with a sigh of relief. He's spent the last three hours weighing every single word before he said it, trying to avoid stepping out of line. "Exhausted" is an understatement. It's weird that a hallucination is capable of tiring him out, or at least he thinks it is, but everything Adam knows about medicine he learned from catching bits and pieces of Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs reruns.
It's as Adam takes off the four layers of clothing (coat, cravat, waistcoat, shirt-complete with removable front, and Adam's kind of surprised he remembers all this from a single costume workshop when he was 15) and finds the long underwear underneath that he starts wondering-not completely, but a little, just a tiny bit-if maybe, somehow . . .
Let it go. You damn near broke your stupid head open this morning, of course everything's all screwy. Tomorrow you're going to wake up and find half a dozen people standing around your bed scared sick over you, so just let it go.
Okay. Fine. He can do that. The bed feels strange, the sheets too crisp and the weight of the blanket too unlike the comforter on his own bed, but he's tired-so tired.
And it doesn't take long before the exhaustion outweighs the strangeness, and his last thought of the night, rooted in the certainty that he'll wake up somewhere else tomorrow, is at least it's not a bad trip.
Author: Ninalyn/technicolornina
Fandom: Adam Lambert
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Oscar Wilde, Constance Wilde,
Word Count: 2816
Spoilers: AHAHAHA nnnnnnnnnnnnnnot really.
Story Rating: R for safety? Not sure it'll get above PG-13.
Chapter Rating: PG-13 for Adam's mouth.
Story Summary: Adam doesn't know how he got here or what he's supposed to do, but he's got to get home--preferably before falling for the cute Irish married man.
Disclaimer: Tweet this to the people whose fictitious avatars are involved and I will so disown/cut/block you so damned fast. If you are one of the people whose fictitious avatars are involved, it's all in fun and I don't think anybody believes a word of it (including me), so don't hate me, please?
Notes: I didn't shy away from representing life in 1889 as accurately as I could. Therefore, if you have issues with casual prejudices, racial slurs, hypocritical morals, infidelity, misogyny, and abuse of the French, this is not the story for you. Give it a pass and see you on the flip-flop? In the meantime, if you do choose to read it, please don't make nasty comments about subjects that aren't particularly kosher today but were accepted facts of life in Victorian times. K? Thanks.
Feedback: I really do appreciate it when I get it, so if you care to make an author happy, please do.
Special Thanks/Dedications: For the original requester on glam_kink. Hope it all turns out to your satisfaction!
He doesn't remember coming home.
He doesn't remember going home with anyone else, either, but he's in a bed he's pretty sure isn't his, and he had to get there somehow. Given that his head feels like he spent his night slamming it into the sidewalk, he's guessing it was under his own power while very, very drunk.
Except he also can't remember drinking anything. And he's fully clothed. In multiple layers, even. And the top one looks like it might be a tuxedo vest. Not exactly how he'd expect waking up in somebody else's bed to end.
Something bright flashes near his still-closed eyes, and he groans and tries to pull away. Someone forces his eye open, and then Adam-Adam? Yeah, Adam-is staring painfully at what he's pretty sure is a candle.
"Mr. Lambert?" The guy is British, or doing a damned good job of pretending he is. "Mr. Adam Lambert, is that your name, sir?"
"Yeah," Adam breathes, because any more than breathing is going to split his head in two. "Yeah, I'm Adam."
He thinks the guy in the suit frowns at him, but it's hard to tell, because everything is blurry. "Mr. Lambert, could you identify your place of residence for me, please?"
"I'm from WeHo," he says. Now he can tell Mr. Black Suit is frowning. Must not be from LA. Maybe he really is British. Adam opens his mouth again and tries to remember what WeHo is short for.
"I took his name from his passport," says another voice, not exactly British but not quite Irish either. "He's American. From California, or so it would appear."
"Los Angeles," Adam supplies, and then what he was looking for snaps into place and he spits it out before he can forget again "West Hollywood. WeHo is West Hollywood."
"My name is Doctor Stanton, Mr. Lambert," Black Suit says. "You took a fall in the street. Could you tell us where you're residing while you're in London?"
"London?" What happened to-wherever I was? A museum, in a city that wasn't London, with his brother . . . but which city? Was he on tour or on vacation? He can't remember.
"You don't remember being in London, Mr. Lambert?" asks Sanford or Samhain or whatever the guy's name is, Adam knows he was just told and normally he's totally sick with names but this one is completely eluding him, and he shakes his head just a little and winces.
"No," he answers, and gets the kind of disapproving "mmm" he knows from doctors in at least six different countries. Sniffles or sprained ankle, it's always the same: "mmm," and then a stiff little prescription pad and orders to rest and really, Mr. Lambert, Adam, that means rest, none of this sleeping an extra hour at night and working the rest of the time stuff.
The second voice is murmuring words Adam can't make out, and then he hears Santorum (Sanderson? Sandman? No, that's a song, not a name) say "It seems most likely to be a concussion. There's often amnesia in such cases-passing, and mild. I can arrange for him to be moved to hospital if you prefer, but if you could keep him here for a day or two until, perhaps, he remembers where he planned to stay-"
Adam lets his eyes slide shut-what the hell, it's not like he can see anything even when they're open anyway-and when he opens them again there's just a single man in the room, staring intently down at him.
"I hope you'll forgive my having taken the liberty of examining your pocketbook," the man says, and tosses his hair out of his face. "It was imperative that we know your name."
"It's cool," Adam tells him, wondering when he got a pocketbook, and when the man's brows knit together Adam waves a hand. "Fine. I mean. It's okay." He shuts his eyes again, not so much out of tiredness as because the light fixture, which looks like an absolutely sick reproduction of a gaslight, is way too bright for him. "I'm in-" And he knows he was told this, but that slipped his mind, too.
"London," the man tells him. "England. There was something of an altercation across the way. You were pushed to the ground by a ruffian attempting to abuse a young woman on her way into the milliner's. You remember nothing at all?"
I don't even know what the fuck a milner's is, Adam thinks but doesn't say. Instead, "No." And then, "I was out with friends. We were in Manhattan." And that's it, they were at a museum, even Neil was excited because it was one of those little hidden pockets of New York Adam doesn't know shit-all about and Neil knew Adam would love, they were doing an exhibit on-
"This is highly irregular," the man says. "But I suppose it can't be helped. Dr. Stanton was of the opinion you'd be best served by staying here until you've recovered yourself, and to be quite honest, I must say I agree." He holds out a hand, and Adam pushes himself up to sitting enough to take it. He's with the programme just enough to realise his nail polish is completely and totally gone. And then he really sails off the edge of the world.
"Mr. Oscar Wilde, at your service, Mr. Lambert," the man says.
---------------------
"Vyvyan," Constance Wilde warns, and Adam watches the younger of the two Wilde boys slow from a run through the drawing-room to a crawling kind of walk.
"But Mother-"
"What have I told you about that word in gentleman's language, Vyvyan?" she asks, and Adam could almost smile-she sounds like his mother, only Irish. Some things really don't ever change. "We have a guest. Sit or go to the nursery." She turns to Adam with a tiny, uncomfortably formal smile. "Apologies, Mr. Lambert. His governess is the most abominable little French girl. She's frightfully lax with him at times."
Adam smiles back and reminds himself he can't use "cool" here. "It's fine. I think we're a little more casual out West than you are here." He hopes it's enough to cover for having not had the slightest idea how to act at the dinner table; once upon a time he knew Victorian table manners, but apparently they got fell out of his head with damned near everything else when he got literally knocked silly, and the best he could do was pull together his 21st-century formal manners and hope it was close enough. He didn't get tossed out on his ear, at least, so he's guessing he at least managed to not be actively offensive. Mrs. Wilde smiles again.
"Yes, you're one of our American cousins, aren't you?" she says, and adopts an expression far too interested for Adam's comfort. "I don't suppose you've ever seen any Red Indians, living in California, have you?"
The hell? "Red Indians?"
"Savages," she elaborates, like that explains everything. "Or-I suppose calling them savages has gone out of fashion, hasn't it? Primitives, perhaps-one would think they'd invent a better word for a group of people who go round dressed in nothing but feathers and animal hides."
Native Americans? Adam thinks, and shakes his head. "I've met a few, ma'am, but the ones I know dress just like everybody else." Adam digs into his memories of high school history and pulls out a piece of information he can pass off as relevant. "After the-" He stops himself just before he spits out Civil War. There was a different term in the 19th century. He knows there was. Finally he just says "the war" and hopes he's remembering right that America wasn't involved in any between 1865 and 1918. "President Johnson set up training schools. To integrate them into white society." And because he's getting a look from Mrs. Wilde that suggests he's starting to sound too 2011 again, he forces himself to spit out a platitude that would leave most of his friends tearing out their hair screaming. "I guess the theory is a red-skinned man can swing a sledge just as well as a white one." Please don't let the railroad across the country be finished already.
"Are you harassing Mr. Lambert about Red Indians, Constance?" Wilde asks, as he comes in with a pair of brandy glasses and hands one to Adam. "Next you'll be wanting him to tell you Negro tales."
Adam bites his tongue. This is October 1889, if you're believing the London Times. Get used to it. Constance Wilde makes a noise.
"Oh, one can hear those tiresome stories anywhere," she protests. "But one almost never meets a man who's truly met a Red Indian to speak of, and it's impossible to know when you might need the knowledge."
Wilde takes his seat and raises his glass. "Your good and restored health, Mr. Lambert."
Adam raises his own. "And yours, Mr. Wilde." At least as long as you've still got it, he thinks. Then he realises they're waiting for him to drink first.
Adam's never had brandy in his life.
It can't be that hard. It's drinking, not rocket science.
Adam tries to examine his glass as fast as he can in his peripheral vision. There can't be more than a shot in the glass, but he's guessing tossing it back like a belt of whiskey isn't the approved method of drinking it, especially in mixed company. He thinks he remembers how they did this in some of the old 1940s films he fell madly in love with when he was 14, and hoping he's not about to make a complete fool of himself he swirls the brandy around the bottom of the glass and takes a sip, breathing a sigh of relief when Wilde follows suit and then tells both boys-Vyvyan squirming on his seat-to wash and go to the nursery.
"I sent round to the hotels in the neighbourhood," Wilde says, when the boys are gone. "I'm afraid I wasn't able to recover your effects. None of them seem to have any record of you having reserved a room. I don't suppose your trunk was in your carriage?"
Trunk? Adam shakes his head. "I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"I suspected as much," Wilde answers. "No matter. I can send to the company tomorrow and make an inquiry. The police should have the cab number."
"A shame for this to happen when you'd just got here," Constance Wilde says in her blurred Irish accent. "I do hope you won't think the less of London for it."
"You've been more than kind enough to make up for the inconvenience," Adam answers, and as he receives a warm smile in return he thinks Jane Austen, I love you. "I'm just sorry to have troubled you this way."
"Not at all," Wilde protests. "Every man should take care of his fellow." He glances across at his wife, and she sets her cup on the table beside her.
"I've had the maid see to your room," she says. "It should be in order, but if there's anything you need please don't hesitate a moment to ask."
"Thank you, ma'am," Adam answers, and as the Wildes stand up he follows suit. "You're both too kind."
"Nonsense," Mrs. Wilde tells him. "Come-I'll see you to your room."
Adam wants to point out that he spent most of the day in the room she's doubtless taking him to-or rather, as he's pretty convinced, he's spent his day believing himself to be in a reproduction of a room he saw in a museum where he apparently fell and whacked his head, and in reality he's in a hospital room somewhere in New York and Neil is waiting for him to wake up. But he's not sure hallucinations enjoy being reminded they're hallucinations, and even if it is a hallucination it looks very cold and wet outside the drawing-room windows, and he'd rather be hallucinating being warm and dry than soaked and freezing.
And so he simply lets her lead him down the hall, one hand on his arm, speaking in her soft Irish accent about a party tomorrow Adam couldn't care less about because by tomorrow he's going to be waking up in New York with an IV stuck somewhere unpleasant, and then they're stopping outside the door of the room and she's looking up at him.
"Mr. Lambert," she says, and Adam tries to identify the statement behind the cool address.
"Yes, ma'am?"
She gasps a little and pulls her hand back from his arm, glancing away. "Good evening, Mr. Lambert."
"The same to you, ma'am," he tells her, as she hurries off down the hallway, and he slides into the room with a sigh of relief. He's spent the last three hours weighing every single word before he said it, trying to avoid stepping out of line. "Exhausted" is an understatement. It's weird that a hallucination is capable of tiring him out, or at least he thinks it is, but everything Adam knows about medicine he learned from catching bits and pieces of Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs reruns.
It's as Adam takes off the four layers of clothing (coat, cravat, waistcoat, shirt-complete with removable front, and Adam's kind of surprised he remembers all this from a single costume workshop when he was 15) and finds the long underwear underneath that he starts wondering-not completely, but a little, just a tiny bit-if maybe, somehow . . .
Let it go. You damn near broke your stupid head open this morning, of course everything's all screwy. Tomorrow you're going to wake up and find half a dozen people standing around your bed scared sick over you, so just let it go.
Okay. Fine. He can do that. The bed feels strange, the sheets too crisp and the weight of the blanket too unlike the comforter on his own bed, but he's tired-so tired.
And it doesn't take long before the exhaustion outweighs the strangeness, and his last thought of the night, rooted in the certainty that he'll wake up somewhere else tomorrow, is at least it's not a bad trip.