Fic: The Love Of My Fucking Life.
Title: The love of my fucking life.
Author:
aneas
Word-Count: 10 500.
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Adam/Kris.
Disclaimer: This portrayal is entirely fictional. Not for profit, just for our entertainment.
Warnings: The guys are both assholes. No, really. They are.
Betas: My sweet, sweet
cookie57. This is totally her fault. Believe me. This fic was 2 000 words long before she read it for the first time.
Notes: In this fic, Kris is the author of the song “The truth” instead of Pat Monahan & Toby Gad.
Summary: Kris feels like he should say something, something meaningful, that can sum up their relationship: beautiful parting words maybe, or even cruel ones, but something better than this horrible silence that stretches between them.
It’s no use. He’s always been shit at meaningfulness. With enough time, Kris usually comes up with profound, moving things. With enough time and distance, he even turns those things into songs.
Right now, looking at Adam, all he can come with is: `How did we let it end like this, so dreadful, so empty? When did we stop being enough for each other?´
“Oh,” Adam says. “I forgot to tell you. Tomorrow we’re hosting a Sunday brunch here at home.”
Kris turns around, the socks he was trying to sort all but forgotten, and looks at him. “What?” he asks, disbelievingly.
Adam doesn’t even raise his eyes from his laptop. He’s sitting on their bed, his back resting against the headboard. “I’ve had the most hellish week ever, sorry I forgot to mention it.” He looks up then and offers Kris a vague smile, but turns back to his work almost immediately. “But don’t worry, it’s a simple thing, just thirty, forty people tops.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Kris feels compelled to ask, because this can’t be happening. This is the first weekend they both can spend at home without any commitment at all since… Kris can’t remember when. And Adam singlehandedly managed to turn it into a huge production, which honestly? Kris should be used to by now.
“No, I’m not,” Adam says, still focused on his laptop. Kris has to drop the pair of socks he has in his hand, because the urge to throw them at Adam’s head is pretty overwhelming. He forces himself to put them into his drawer and closes it with care, breathing slowly.
He can’t loose his cool. He can’t.
“And how in hell are we going to organize this simple thing of yours on such short notice, Adam?” It’s amazing how stable his voice sounds, considering his gritted teeth. He doesn’t need to turn around to watch Adam; his reflection in the mirror is enough.
“That’s what catering is for, Kristopher,” and the Duh! tone pushes Kris over the edge. Patronizing little shit.
“You know you’re an asshole, right?” he says, his voice cold, and Adam finally raises his head. He has the nerve to look surprised, like he really doesn’t know what the problem is.
“Wha-” he tries to talk, but Kris is on a roll.
“Do you really think that less than twenty four hours is enough time to put a brunch like this together?” He asks, and Adam furrows his eyebrows. “Do you know the kind of preparation it takes? Where are we going to find the catering? What are we going to eat? Do we have enough space?”
He turns and crosses his arms over his chest. Adam’s bemused expression would be funny in any other situation. Right now, it just angers Kris even more.
Adam opens and closes his mouth twice, and then giggles nervously. “Are you listening to yourself? When did you turn into Martha Stewart?”
“Fuck you!” Kris snaps. Adam stops laughing abruptly. His eyes widen, and Kris can relate. Wow. He swore and he meant it. That’s a first.
He’s as surprised as Adam, because being a good host has never been a great concern for him. Kris is the kind of guy that considers a party a success if there’s enough pizza and beer for everyone. He can’t believe he’s acting like this, either. Really.
“Whoa, let’s take a step back, okay?” Adam says, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I don’t know what the problem is here, but I’m sure we can talk about it.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it,” Kris says with venom. “Who’s coming? When will they arrive? How long will it last? Do I even know the guests? At least one?”
He comes closer to the bed. Adam shakes his head. “I don’t-”
Kris raises both his eyebrows. “Does Lane know about this brunch, Adam?” he asks, and Adam’s guilty flinch is answer enough. Fantastic. So now Adam’s PA knows more about Kris’s household than he does. Maybe he should call her to sync his schedule with Adam’s. He’d have better information for sure. “She took care of everything, didn’t she? There’s a party in my house tomorrow and I’m the last one to know.”
“Cut the crap, Kris!” Adam says, and rises from the bed. “And they say I’m a drama queen! I told you I’m sorry I forgot. I’ll try not to do it again. But stop the guilt trip, okay? It’s just a fucking brunch!”
“No, it’s not!” he shouts, and his voice is trembling. It scares him. He’s a singer; his voice is his instrument. Kris shouldn’t lose control of it so easily. “The brunch is just a…a fucking metaphor of how small my place in your life is. Like not knowing if you’re coming home at dinnertime, or if you’re going to be out of town for the next week until the last possible second, okay? It’s about how you shut me out of your life!”
“Are you insane?” Adam shouts back. Kris feels the bite of his fingernails in the palms of his hands. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little? It’s just a brunch, Kris; it’s not about our relationship. I don’t deserve a fucking screaming match just for wanting to have some friends at my house once in while.”
“I wish it was once in while! This house is…like Graceland, it’s so full of people all the time!” Kris watches Adam roll his eyes. “You know I’m right!” he says, and his voice quivers. Fucking quivers. Great.
Adam is looking at him like he’s grown a new head, his evil twin’s head or something. “Yeah, whatever,” he says finally, and walks out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Kris shouts, following him to the landing.
Adam doesn’t stop, he just yells over his shoulder while he goes down the stairs. “Out! You’re being unreasonable and I’m going to give you some time to chill out.”
Like a kid. Adam is dismissing him like a kid having a tantrum. Kris grabs the wood of the stairs rail so tight his knuckles are almost white. “That’s very mature, Adam, leaving me alone again.”
Adam stops by the table at the entrance and looks up. “How could you be alone in a house full of people, Kris? Make up your mind.” There’s so much scorn in his voice that Kris sees red.
“Adam, I’m warning you: don’t go.”
Adam looks at him in silence. Then, slowly, deliberately, takes his denim jacket and puts it on. “Or else? What are you going to do, retreat a little more into your bubble? Shut me out? And that would be different from the way you act now, how, exactly?”
“We have to talk!” he says, and how’s that for irony? Talking about his relationship has always been as foreign an activity to Kris as macramé.
“Not now! Not when whatever it is that crawled up your ass and died has you so worked up that you can only shout at me at the top of your lungs. That’s not the kind of conversation I care to have, thank you.”
Impasse. They look at each other through the silence in their hall. Kris’ heart is beating madly; he’s sure Adam can hear it.
“Believe me, right now its better if we just take a break from each other, Kristopher,” Adam says, and the sane part of Kris’ brain, the part that didn’t run off to Bermuda, knows that Adam is trying to be reasonable. But the certainty in his voice, the implicit `I know better than you’, fills up Kris’ stomach with bile.
“Okay, run away, fine!” he spits back.
Adam’s nostrils flare before he turns around and takes his keys from the table. “Fine!” he yells in turn, and slams the door behind him.
The loud sound of the door closing behind Adam makes Kris shut his eyes.
When he’s sure he’s not going to lose it, he opens them again. The only noise in the empty house is Kris’ shallow breathing, and he has to sit down on the stairs, the adrenaline leaving his body, rendering his knees weak. He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts, trying to understand what the hell just has happened.
He just had the worst fight of his life.
Kris isn’t used to huge discussions. His marriage kind of died of its own accord, what with him being on tour almost all the time, and with Katy’s reluctance to fit the role of the pliable trophy wife his label wanted her to play. They both agreed it was better if they divorced, and the whole situation was very civilized and mature, and they parted ways on friendly terms. Mostly. (Okay, so Katy cried for, like, a month, and Kris was depressed and every night he wrote dark, dejected songs that his assistant systematically burned when morning came; but, all in all, Kris considers his divorce a rather painless process, once you take out the guilt and the shame and the wretched expectations of family and friends, and the eight months of mourning, of course. And, hey, they only fell back in bed together twice. Kris considers it a win.)
Kris guesses that’s why he wasn’t pleasantly surprised when he found out that a relationship with Adam comes with a lot of drama and weird situations that he can barely understand, let alone navigate correctly without arguments.
He knows Adam has a temper, and he knows Adam’s very passionate about his goals, his family and all things that glitter; but it’s painfully obvious Kris isn’t prepared for the level of craziness surrounding Adam’s life. He’s been trying to be level headed about the one hundred people Adam needs around him on a daily basis, and about the “three rooms destined to be a closet” thing, and the way Adam can’t ever say for sure when he’ll be home. He smiles tightly every time he wakes up and he finds strangers, armed with make up brushes, drinking his coffee in the kitchen; he just shrugs if paparazzi yell at him on the street, asking if he minds how cozy Adam and Tommy were in their last public appearance; and Kris just bites his tongue and assures Adam it’s all right when he calls Kris to cancel yet another lunch date because this “interview just came up, Kris, and it’s huge, I swear I’ll make up it to you later, babe!”
On the whole, Kris thinks he’s been pretty accommodating with Adam’s tight schedule and crazy entourage. Clearly being accommodating and being okay isn’t the same thing, as his reaction to Brunch-gate shows. He wonders how long this situation has been brewing. Probably a long, long time, judging by how fast it turned ugly.
He sighs. Sometimes being oblivious is good, but this is not one of those times. Kris would like to have known he was so close to the boiling point. Mostly, so he doesn’t act like an irrational asshole. (In his defense he has to say that the lack of self-awareness is totally an Allen trait, along with the not noticing the feelings of the people around him until they, literally, smack Kris in the head with them. His mother says so, and his father never denies it, so it must be true. His DNA sucks.)
Kris knows he is, probably, one of the most clueless people ever, but it’s obvious even to him that they evidently don’t talk about their feelings very much, or at all. It looks like there are a lot of things they want to tell each other but never manage to. It’s a shame Kris apparently decided to do it screaming at the top of his lungs and with the worst timing ever.
He admits that Adam was probably right. They need some time apart. Kris is not like Adam, who can give a coherent discourse while he’s stoned out of his mind. Even under the best of circumstances, Kris babbles a lot and makes no sense at all. He needs some time to clear his head and compose some sort of speech that gets his point across and doesn’t make him look like a hysterical teenager if he wants to clear the air with Adam.
He gets up and walks down the stairs so he can busy himself tidying the sitting room. There isn’t exactly a mess. It’s just his half empty cup of tea and honey, his book and the blanket he used last night until Adam woke him up when he came back from the party. He folds the blanket and picks up his glasses from the floor. Sometimes it looks like all he’s been doing lately is waiting for Adam to come home.
Kris is in the kitchen, rinsing the cup under the water when a horrible idea punches him in the stomach. Adam said they should take a break from each other. He was talking about a few hours, right? He didn’t surely mean…breaking up? Like, for a while?
No.
No, that can’t be. Adam didn’t mean that. He didn’t. He can’t be so cavalier about them breaking up, not when the mere idea is chilling Kris’ blood.
He shakes his head. It’s just a fight, nothing more. Kris is overreacting again. It was a hard, nasty fight, okay; but just a fight. Nobody’s going to break up. This relationship is not over.
But once the idea is planted in his mind, it’s difficult to forget it. What if Adam wants them to break up, what if he finally realized that he’s better off without Kris? He’s so scared his hand trembles when he puts the cup in the cabinet. It never felt like this with Katy. Kris was sad when it ended; sad and disappointed, but weirdly (and guiltily) relieved, too. He’s not feeling relieved right now. He’s rather frightened, to be honest.
Maybe the reason this situation is overwhelming him, is that he’s not experienced enough. His only serious relationship was with Katy, and they never fought like this, not even when their tempers were at their worst during the divorce. Of course they had discussions, what marriage doesn’t? But they never attacked each other like Adam and Kris just did.
Whenever Kris raised his voice, Katy’s eyes would grow huge, and she would bite her lip, and put her arms around herself, trying to be even smaller, and Kris would end up feeling like an asshole.
Adam’s personality is far more volatile than Kris’. He talks big, he laughs loud, he loves strong. Everything is a production with him: his shows and his parties, even his clothes are unpredictable. It stands to reason that his personal life would be the same.
The worst part is that Kris knew it all along. He knew Adam would eventually get bored with him, with their tedious and ordinary life. That’s why he’s been so lenient with having Adam’s friends at home all the time, that’s why he never gets angry if Adam wants to go out every night he’s not on tour or recording. He doesn’t want Adam to feel he’s missing something because he’s with Kris, or that his life has to change drastically because he’s in a relationship with the dullest guy on Earth.
Kris walks out of the kitchen and sits on the sofa. He stays there for longer that he wants to admit, even to himself, waiting for Adam to come back to assure him that he wasn’t serious. He can see Adam’s phone on the entrance table. So much for calling him to know when he’ll be back. The only thing he can do is stay put and wait for him to come back home.
He waits.
Kris wakes up at five in the afternoon, a terrible pain in his neck from falling asleep on the sofa. He realizes that he’s been waiting for Adam for almost eight hours. There’s no message on his cell, so he runs upstairs to their room to check their answering machine, because by now, he’s frantic with worry. But there’s no message there, either. Kris wants to kick something, anything, preferably something that belongs to Adam, because it’s one thing running away from home in the middle of an argument, but it’s another thing entirely not calling the whole day to assure your partner that you’re not lying dead in a ditch.
And there it is, the cold anger he didn’t know was missing from his stomach comes back again, and the rush is so sudden and strong that it makes him almost dizzy. He’s never been this angry with Adam before. How could he disappear like that? Doesn’t he care he’s driving Kris crazy with worry?
That’s it.
Kris decides that if they’re acting like teenagers, he better go all the way and pack his things, because if Adam thinks that Kris is going to wait for him at home like nothing happened, he has another thing coming. He’s not the only one that can run away from home. When he throws his overnight bag and his toiletries kit on the bed, Adam’s laptop switches on, a half written e-mail on the screen.
Kris isn’t a jealous person. He’s never felt the need to control Adam’s phone calls, or to read his messages. He already knows that half the planet is in lust with Adam, so there’s no sense in driving himself mad over things he cannot change. Kris trusts Adam; he knows firsthand that Adam’s not a cheater, and Kris knows that he’d be the first to know if his boyfriend wanted another person. Adam is nothing but honest, he’d tell Kris immediately.
So it’s not lack of confidence that makes him lift up the computer and start to read the message. It’s subject line, with capital bold letters read: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE.
Who was he writing the email to?
Oh.
Brad.
It looks like he was writing a message to Brad when Kris and Adam started to fight. He closes his eyes for a second, and tries to convince himself that he’s not doing this; he’s not reading Adam’s personal mail to his ex.
He lasts exactly three seconds.
Who’s he trying to fool? He was doomed the moment he discovered the mail. If Adam is still in love with Brad, if he still considers Brad the love of his fucking life, then Kris has to know it.
He rubs the back of his neck and starts to read.
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:34:04 -0500
Subject: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE
From: Glitterbaby@gmail.com
To: Cheekstodiefor@hotmail.com
Brad,
Do you remember how I used to say that I would never love again if we ever broke up? That I would never find another person to love the way I loved you? I was so sure you were the love of my fucking life. Hell, I even told people YOU were the love of my life, just because my heart actually shattered when we broke up. It certainly felt that way. Every second we spent apart it was a fucking nightmare; and that first week I hardly ate or even showered at all. It was the most horrifying experience of my life, and I thought that if I ever had to live through something like that again, I would lose my mind.
I wanted to fall in love again, and I tried, but it was like a game, you know? Like pretending the relationships were real, that I was involved, that I loved them. And you smiled; because you of all people around me, you were the one that knew that it wasn’t love. You had the real thing once, the real me, and you knew the difference.
It’s been you for so long. I compared them all to you. They all lacked something, because they weren’t you. Too tall, too nice, too sweet, too bitchy, not southern enough, not Brad enough. It wasn’t fair, I know, but…it had been you for so long, that I couldn’t really help it.
The email doesn’t end there, but Kris has to stop because by now, his hands are trembling so bad the lines are starting to blur, and he’s going to drop the computer. He blinks and looks at his reflection in the big mirror over Adam’s dresser. He’s pale and his legs are shaking. The sunset light coming in the room makes him close his eyes. It’s not raining, he thinks stupidly. How come it’s not raining? It always rain when people get their heart broken in the movies.
What is he supposed to do? How can he live with Adam now that he knows that Adam is still in love with Brad? For a second, he wonders if he should leave the computer where he found it, act like he never read it, like he doesn’t know. Out of sight…would it really be out of mind? It hurts to breathe, he can’t think.
And then, a movement behind him makes him turn, and Adam’s in the doorway, his lips tight.
“I believe I have the journal I wrote when I was fifteen somewhere around, if you’re still in the mood for violating my privacy,” he says, his voice cold, and Kris flinches.
He knows Adam’s right, and he should apologize, but he has no time before Adam comes into the bedroom. “I never thought you could sink so low, Kristopher,” he says, curling his upper lip contemptibly, taking his computer from Kris’ hands.
Overwhelming, choking anger makes Kris talk. “Don’t try to distract me, Adam. You’re the one that-that…” He can’t say it, however, and he stops for second, trying not to yell. But he needs to know; he deserves to know, damn it!
“Were you with Brad all day?” Kris asks, because he’s not very perceptive, but sometimes he has these flashes, like a sudden rush of certainty, and right now they’re telling him that Adam’s been with Brad.
“Yes.”
Kris sits down on the bed before his knees give out and he falls down and humiliates himself.
“How could you?” he says, pain choking him and making his voice small.
Adam tilts his head and looks down at Kris. “He’s always been my closest friend,” he says, and from the tone of his voice it’s obvious he says it just to hurt Kris, but it stings all the same.
Kris closes his mouth and his teeth snap. He narrows his eyes. “ How convenient, having him at your corner all the time.”
Adam snorts. “Cut the crap, please. The whole world is in your corner, or don’t you remember? I’m the asshole who turned perfect Kris Allen into a poof and broke his ideal marriage to his high school sweetheart.”
Adam better not talk about Katy. “I’m warning you, Adam, don’t mention her.”
“Why not? I thought it was `Bring back the exes day.’” He takes off his jacket and sends it flying over the chair in the corner. “So far it’s been a riot!”
Kris feels his hands close in fists on his lap, and makes a conscious effort to relax them. “It’s not fun at all, and you know it.”
He can’t believe this is happening to him. He’s going to wake up any moment and this is going to be a nightmare. His gaze rests for a moment on the clock by his bed table, and he notices the hour, really not caring. “This is the worst day of my life,” he says aloud, and he wonders absently why his voice sounds so far away.
They need to talk. They need to clear things up, because this is not supposed to be like this. They have to be sensible, talk like mature people. He has to make an effort and be rational.
He looks up at Adam. “I was worried, you could’ve called to tell me you were fine.”
Adam nods, sarcasm dripping like molasses from his words. “Yes, I can see how worried you were by the way you rushed to pack your things.” He signals Kris’ stuff over the bed with a tilt of his jaw.
Oh, God. “What did you want me to do, then?” Kris says through clenched teeth.
“Nothing? Like you’ve been doing until now?” Adam’s eyebrows are up, and he raises his hand to his chest in fake shock. “Sorry, was I supposed to guess this was the day you showed some initiative?” The fucker even flutters his eyelashes. Full Scarlett O’Hara mode, Adam’s style.
Kris bites his lip and counts to ten in his head. Adam’s histrionics are never a good sign. “You’re not being very mature, Adam.”
Adam ends the innocent act and glares at him. “And you’re a patronizing little shit, Kristopher. It wouldn’t have killed you to show some interest in me.”
“How?” Kris asks. “Honestly! What were you expecting? For me to chase after you.?”
Adam turns his head and crosses his arms over his chest.
Kris snorts. “Grow up, Adam. Life is not a fucking soap opera. You’ve got other thing coming if you actually think I’m going to run after you when you pull your vanishing act.”
Adam looks at him. “You’re mistaken. I wasn’t expecting you to follow me. That would’ve shown that you actually care for me. Or for this relationship.”
“Come on!” Kris shouts. He can’t believe it. “You’re kidding me! You can’t honestly believe that I’m not invested in this because I refused to look for you after you stomped off!”
“It’s just an example, Kris!” Adam runs his hand through his hair. “You’re as detached from this relationship as you could be without living in another country, and that’s a fact.”
“The irony is killing me,” Kris enunciates slowly, getting up. Adam narrows his eyes. It looks like some of his antics are rubbing off on Kris, too. Go figure. “Most of the time, I feel like you’re the one out of the country for all the attention you give me.”
“Oh, poor you!” Adam mocks. “Feeling a little neglected? Maybe I should put my life on hold just to take care of your needs, like a good little wife, right?” He comes closer, smirking, and tries to touch Kris’ face.
Kris slaps his hand, taking a step back, and Adam’s eyes harden. “But wait, you already had one of those and it didn’t work out so well, did it?” His smirk is vicious.
“I told you not to bring up Katy,” Kris warns. He can feel how fast his heart is pounding. He’s a little scared of himself, actually, because so far this conversation is totally out of character for them both, and he has no way of knowing what he would he do if Adam cornered him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t even mention her precious name.” Adam snaps. He comes closer, but Kris refuses to let Adam intimidate him, so he doesn’t back off when Adam takes another step.
“This is not about her at all. It’s about you, Kris. About how detached you are. You’re so passive in your relationships you even wrote a song about it!”
Kris doesn’t know what Adam means. He frowns, and Adam snorts in disbelief. His voice takes a derisive edge. “The elephant, the roof, `easier than telling the truth’? Rings any bells, dear?”
Kris feels the ugliness hit him with an unexpected fist in his chest. He stares at Adam with incredulity. Adam didn’t just use Kris’ words against him, he didn’t take Kris’ feelings and doubts when he was at one of his most vulnerable moments and twist them into a weapon against Kris. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He only stares.
He wants to say: `Who the hell are you? I don’t even fucking know you´; but maybe it’s better he’s speechless, because he fears that if he tries to talk he’ll start bitching or crying, or maybe even punching Adam; so he just takes a step back and then another, until he feels the solid reassurance of the closet door against his back.
If he thought he was heartbroken before, he was mistaken. He blinks, trying to focus, trying to put things into perspective, because he feels like all he knew about Adam was false, and he’s not sure he likes this new person in front of him very much.
Adam raises an eyebrow and his smirk is almost nasty, ugly, and Kris wonders if he will ever get past his new perception of Adam. If he can overcome the fact that everything he thought he knew about him could be false.
He feels the irrational need to laugh, but makes an effort to choke it back. He’s afraid it’ll come out hysterical in some way. There’s nothing funny about the fact that right now he kind of hates Adam, and that’s something he honestly never thought would happen.
“I don’t think I can be with you right now,” he finally says. He’s proud his voice isn’t shaking. He turns and begins to open the closet door to take out some clothes. “I’m out of here, in a few days I’ll-”
Adam’s closed fist hits the door and pushes it back in place. Kris doesn’t flinch.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He growls in Kris’ ear.
“Save the caveman act for one of your twinks, Adam. It doesn’t work with me,” he replies calmly, not bothering to look at him. Adam bangs his hand on the door, again.
“Answer me!” he shouts, and Kris inhales, surprised. Adam is so close, the heat of his body warms Kris’ right side. He turns his head and looks Adam straight in the eye.
“I don’t know where I’m going. A hotel, Cale’s,” he shrugs. Adam tightens his lips, and Kris’ reckless side makes him say, just for the hell of it, “Katy’s, maybe. I’m always welcome there.”
Kris knows that Adam is big, and he knows that Adam uses it to his advantage sometimes. But he’s never used it to intimidate Kris before, so when Adam closes the remaining distance between them to loom over him, Kris feels an unexpected thrill. Adam’s hand closes around Kris’ arm.
“Like hell you’re going to your wife’s” he says, and Kris wants to object to Katy’s status, but he has to admit that Adam’s bared teeth and flaring nostrils are menacing. He has Kris cornered against the closet door with his bulk and Kris doesn’t like the feeling.
“Let me go, Adam,” he says, evenly. Adam scowls, and Kris tries again. “I want you to get off me.”
Adam just looks at him without blinking. “You’re going nowhere.”
It’s unfair how gorgeous Adam is, Kris thinks. Even now, tense, with dark circles under his eyes and wrinkles in his forehead. His black hair is all over the place, roots showing. It doesn’t matter if he wears make up or not, Adam always looks amazing to Kris, and now is no different. Kris wants to touch his face, badly.
He’s no longer angry, even though he wants to be. If he’s angry he’s numb, and he needs that numbness like air, right now. At the moment, he can’t afford to feel. He needs to summon his anger from somewhere deep inside, at least until he’s out of here. Every second they’re together they’re hurting each other, and Kris is afraid that they’ll say something beyond repair at any moment.
“This morning you said that we should take a break,” he tells Adam, and the hand in his arm clenches. Adam looks like someone just punched him in the stomach. “I think it’s a good idea.”
He lies through his teeth, because just thinking about it makes him want to puke.
Adam simply says, “No.”
“I don’t care,” Kris says, and when Adam’s hand tightens again, he tries to shake it. “You’re hurting me, Adam.”
For a second, he thinks Adam is not going to release him. But after two or three heartbeats, he does. He even takes a step back, and Kris immediately feels something tight inside him come loose.
“I didn’t say we should take a break,” Adam says. Kris tilts his head. “Well, I did, but I didn’t mean it like that,” he amends, and Kris notices he’s awfully pale, too.
“So it wasn’t just an excuse to run off to Brad?” he asks, sarcastically. Instantly, he wants to kick himself for asking. It doesn’t matter what Adam says; Kris already knows the truth.
Adam sighs. “We were getting pretty worked up, Kris. I’m not nice when I’m angry. I needed to cool off before I said something I would regret, okay? I needed to calm down.”
Kris snorts. “Good luck with that. You look cool as a cucumber to me, right now, with all the angry shouting and the door punching.”
Adam closes his eyes. Kris curls his lip. “So you went away to calm yourself. Why did you come back even angrier, then?”
Adam doesn’t answer; he just raises his hand and signals towards Kris’ suitcase. The message is clear enough. ‘You were leaving.’
For a while, Kris just stands in silence. The room is getting dark, the sunset’s almost over. If he’s going, he should call for a taxi. He’s too wired to drive. He’s still resting against the door, and he inhales sharply before he straightens up. The distance between his feet and the bed, just three steps, looks as wide as a desert.
He tries to, but he can’t take those three steps.
It feels like he should say something, something meaningful that can sum up their relationship: beautiful parting words maybe, or even cruel ones, but something better than this horrible silence that stretches between them.
It’s no use. He’s always been shit at meaningfulness. With enough time, Kris usually comes up with profound, moving things. With enough time and distance, he even turns those things into songs.
Right now, looking at Adam, all he can come with is: `How did we let it end like this, so dreadful, so empty? When did we stop being enough for each other?´
He opens his mouth to say `Why didn’t you tell me you still love him?’ but what comes out instead is: “I have to go.”
Adam narrows his eyes, and then makes a conscious effort to relax. He just looks at Kris for a minute. Finally, he says, “I don’t want to break up,” in a quiet voice, and Kris rests his head against the door, the relief so overwhelming he feels like he’s twenty pounds lighter.
He closes his eyes, mostly to not let loose the hot tears he can feel building behind his eyelids. He feels something warm making itself a home in his throat, forcing him to take quick small breaths.
“But I’ll do it, if you want me to,” Adam continues, and Kris opens his eyes to look at him.
Adam is sitting on the bed, his arms resting on his thighs, his head down. He’s not looking at Kris, his eyes fixed on his boots. Kris remembers those boots. He bought them for Adam on his last trip to New York. Adam blew him for half an hour to thank him.
The memories hurt, but he shouldn’t be surprised. It hurts to breathe; it hurts to think. It obviously hurts to remember. The only problem is that it’s hard to stay rational when everything hurts.
Adam doesn’t want to break up. He just said so. But does he want them to stay together like this? That’s not so clear. And more importantly, does Kris want the same?
Does he?
No. He can’t stay and witness how they tear down their relationship, turning everything ugly. Last time he let his marriage die. He’s not going to make the same mistake. He’s going to save what they have; he’s going to make it work. It doesn’t matter what it takes: Kris will fight. He’s going to make Adam forget Brad, he’ll use every dirty little trick he knows of, and he’ll wipe Brad from Adam’s mind. Forever.
Kris is so surprised by this realization, by this unexpected spark of confidence, that when he straightens up, he trips. Still on the bed, Adam stretches his long arms to catch him, but Kris jerks back without thinking. He can’t bear Adam’s touch right now. Adam looks surprised at his reaction, hurt, then resigned. He tries to hide his face, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, and Kris flinches. He’s making it worse. He has a little moment of doubt. Maybe he should take his bag and go away, make a clean exit and leave Adam behind, before they manage to destroy each other in the process of demolishing their relationship.
“We can’t go on like this,” he says, without conscious thought, and Good Lord, when did his mouth decided to open without his consent?
“I…I see,” Adam says, but it’s clear he doesn’t, and it angers Kris.
“No, you don’t,” he spits, and take two steps forward, until he’s almost between Adam’s knees. “Look at me,” he says, and Adam raises his head, his mouth a thin pale line. “This isn’t working, and you know it. You’re not happy, and neither am I.”
If only Adam loved him, if only Kris had the slightest reassurance that Adam still believes they have any chance to make it work…then everything would be easier, Kris would feel more secure.
Adam opens his mouth, but Kris stops him, his thumb resting over his lips. “Do you…are you still a little in love with me, at least?” His voice breaks at the end, but he doesn’t cry.
“How can you ask me that?” Adam’s lips move under Kris’ finger, and he pulls it back. Adam looks betrayed. “Didn’t you read my email? What else do I have to do?”
The email. Kris doesn’t want to think about it. He glares. “I want to hear it from you,” he demands. “Answer me.”
If Adam is in love with another person then he’ll have to say it to Kris’ face, because Kris isn’t giving up on him without a fight. If Adam wants out, he better man up and say so. Passive shit won’t work this time. Kris is tired of letting things happen to him.
Adam’s eyes are cold when he answers. “You know I love you.”
Kris takes a relieved breath. That’s the important part, Kris can make it work if Adam still loves him; he’ll do better, and he’ll work fucking miracles if that’s what it takes. He only needs Adam to want it, too. He gulps, before he asks, “Enough to try to make it work?” And if he chokes a little when he asks, he acts like it didn’t happen.
“Of course!” Adam’s tone makes clear that he’s cross.
“I’m going to try, too.” He bites his lip, and fights the urge to caress Adam’s head, to comb his hair with his fingers. The temptation is hard to resist. “We won’t talk about Brad anymore, okay? I’m going to-”
“Stop with the Brad stuff, Kris!” Adam says, loud. “I know I shouldn’t have written him about us, but sometimes it’s hard! He knows me, he understands me better than anyone and I…” he stops. He takes a breath. “Sometimes it feels like he’s the only one that gets why I feel the way I feel with you.”
Kris doesn’t understand. What does Adam mean `write about them’?
Adam is still talking. “And he says I’ve been hiding, that I’m not-”
“Wait a minute, Adam, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
“The email,” he replies. “Where I told Brad that…you know,” he finishes, lamely.
It looks like he can’t admit out loud. “That you still love him,” Kris says, keeping his tone steady despite how much it hurts. “That he’s the love of your life.”
“What? NO!” Adam shouts, and rises up, forcing Kris to take a few steps back. “It doesn’t say that!”
He kneels by the bed, opens the laptop and presses multiple keys, insistently. “It doesn’t say that,” he repeats, looking earnestly at Kris, pleading with his eyes to believe him while the laptop switches on.
Kris wants to tell him that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t care that Adam is still a little in love with Brad, even if it’s not entirely true. Kris has decided that he can love Adam enough to make him forget anybody else. He’s going to take care of everything.
Adam gives him the laptop; he thrusts it into his hands, urgently. “Read it,” he says. “Do it. You’ll see.”
He’s not sure he can read the email from the beginning again, so he barely pauses to reread the first lines. They leave a bitter taste in his mouth, anyway.
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:34:04 -0500
Subject: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE
From: Glitterbaby@gmail.com
To: Cheekstodiefor@hotmail.com
Brad,
Do you remember how I used to say that I would never love again if we ever broke up? That I would never find another person to love the way I loved you? I was so sure you were the love of my fucking life. Hell, I even told people YOU were the love of my life, just because my heart actually shattered when we broke up. It certainly felt that way. Every second we spent apart it was a fucking nightmare; and that first week I hardly ate or even showered at all. It was the most horrifying experience of my life, and I thought that if I ever had to live through something like that again, I would lose my mind.
I wanted to fall in love again, and I tried, but it was like a game, you know? Like pretending the relationships were real, that I was involved, that I loved them. And you smiled; because you of all people around me, you were the one that knew that it wasn’t love. You had the real thing once, the real me, and you knew the difference.
It’s been you for so long. I compared them all to you. They all lacked something, because they weren’t you. Too tall, too nice, too sweet, too bitchy, not southern enough, not Brad enough. It wasn’t fair, I know, but…it had been you for so long, that I couldn’t really help it.
I still love you; I think part of me will love you forever, baby. But you’re no longer the one. You’re no longer the love of my life.
I wake up every morning with his bed hair and his bad temper, and I think it’s hilarious when he squints his eyes trying to find his glasses and thrashes everything on the bedside table. His cell never has batteries, and he squeezes the toothpaste the wrong way. He never moisturizes, and he always, always forgets his keys. I even have to phone him all the time to remind him to eat. When I’m on tour, I’m half insane thinking he’ll forget to lock the door, or turn off the appliances. And once, he put a new suede shirt in the washing machine and ruined it!
And guess what? I don’t mind. I’m so fucking in love with him it’s stupid. It’s ridiculous, really. I love him so much that I don’t mind plaid, for heavens sake. I love him so much, that I pretend I don’t mind when he flirts with everything that moves, in this absentminded way of his, when you know I’m the most possessive bastard if I’m in love.
I am so fucking in love with him that I don’t let him see how much it hurts when he doesn’t say “I love you” as freely as I do.
I used to think you were the love of my life.
Now I have him and I’ve learned the difference.
I hope someday he’ll forget Katy completely. I hope I can make him forget he ever belonged to someone else, someone easier to love than me. Don’t think I don’t love Katy, I do; she’s fierce and all, but she’s this little cute thing, all sunshine and rainbows, with her perfect skin and her perfect smile, and it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t compete with that.
It’s useless.
Yes, I know you said I should give him time, but we’ve been together for more than a year, and he stil-
When he ends it, he can feel that his cheeks are hot. How could he be so wrong? How could he think, even for a moment that Adam would cheat on him?
He looks down, ashamed. “I thought you were cheating on me.” He admits. His hands are shaking and he gives back the laptop to Adam, who tosses it carelessly on the bed. His eyes don’t even leave Kris’ face for a minute. “I thought you…that Brad and-” he starts.
Adam interrupts him. “I don’t care. But, do you believe me now?”
“Then, why-” he chokes. He can feel tons of words trying to get out of his mouth like an avalanche. “If you love me like that why don’t you…YOU’RE ALWAYS OUT!” He shouts. “You’re always doing stuff, and going to clubs and to openings and to premiers, and when you’re home there’re always so many people around that I can’t-I can’t-” he stops.
He feels like he’s going to burst into tears. Adam doesn’t look any better. He lowers his face until he hides it from Kris’ eyes, his forehead on the quilt.
“You act like you don’t care,” he says, and his voice cracks too. “Like it doesn’t matter if my tour lasts two more weeks, or if I grope Tommy onstage for fifteen minutes. You just smile and I-I don’t know what to do! You never say you love me and it…it kills me, okay? It kills me.”
God, they’re a mess. They’re so messed up it’s not even funny. Kris kneels by Adam’s side and rubs his back. He rests his head on Adam’s arm, his smell overpowering everything.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s lame, inadequate, but he can’t think, he has nothing better to offer.
“Yeah,” Adam chuckles, but it’s not a happy laugh. It sounds muffled. “I know that you’ll eventually realize that I’m not exactly what you need and it’d better if I’m not used to having you around.”
What? That only makes sense in Adam’s demented world.
“Do you honestly believe that?” Kris asks, appalled. He angles his head until he meets Adam’s eyes. They look dejected. “Do you believe that I’m going to wake up one day and say, `Hey Adam, it was fun, see you around!´? Do you honestly think so little of me?”
“Do you honestly think that I would be with you if I’m in love with someone else?” Adam counters. “Up until now, you were sure I was cheating on you with Brad.”
“And I still wanted to make it work!” Kris shouts. “I was ready to fight him for you, Adam.”
Adam looks at him, his eyes wounded and his mouth a tight line of despair. Kris gives in and puts his hand on Adam’s jaw. “I was ready to fight him,” he repeats, “and you know I would totally lose because he’s feisty and knows how to use his nails.”
“He totally does.” Adam’s smile is sad, but he’s smiling at least.
They stay like that for a while, until Kris lowers his head and kisses Adam briefly on his lips. Adam gasps, and then he wraps his arms around Kris and kisses him properly.
It feels like a first kiss of sorts. It’s tentative, gentle, like they’re carefully testing a new understanding between them. It’s so sweet and so sad that Kris wants to cry. They’re kneeling on the floor, by their bed, shadows slowly filling the room; the only sound is their breathing.
Adam turns his body toward him; he never releases the hold he has on Kris’ arms. When Kris tries to move away, just to catch his breath, Adam tightens his grip and forcefully pulls him across his lap. Kris gasps and tangles his fingers in Adam’s hair. He’s trapped between Adam’s body and the bed. There’s barely any space; Adam’s belt buckle is digging a hole in his stomach and the wood of the bedside is stuck in his kidneys. He doesn’t care; if somebody asks, he’s never been more comfortable.
Kris’ heart is fluttering insanely in his chest; the arms encircling him are his anchors. Without them, he’d be floating. He thinks he can feel the thump of Adam’s heart in response, but then Adam tilts his head just so, and does some swirly…thing with his tongue that makes Kris’ toes curl in his shoes, and Kris’ brain dies of overload. It’s chanting Adam, Adam, Adam, on repeat, again and again; like a never-ending mantra.
This is it, this is where he wants to be. Kris is never going to move again from Adam’s lap. Recording is going to be a bitch, with Adam and Kris joined at the hip, but they’ll have to deal with it at the label.
Adam’s hands roam down his back, his body wrapping Kris’, and he’s kissing Kris with total concentration, like they have all the time in the world, like he has to re-learn Kris by taste, like he has to pass a test.
That’s what Kris has been missing, being the focus of Adam’s total attention. He’s missed the way Adam made him feel at the beginning: like he couldn’t believe they were together, like if he took his eyes of Kris, he would disappear. Adam’s attention on him was like his air, and Kris has been struggling without it for so long.
“I missed you,” he blurts out, and Adam kisses his jaw and then his mouth. “I missed you,” he repeats when Adam releases him, because for some reason it seems terribly important that Adam knows it.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Adam says, punctuating each word with a kiss on Kris’s neck. “I didn’t want to depend on you, I was scared that you’ll-”
“Shut up,” Kris begs, and because he needs to silence him he rolls his hips against Adam. This is his fault as much as Adam’s. They’re both responsible for this distance between them: Kris’ passivity and Adam’s insecurities, the worst combination possible.
They had been so close to losing everything. “We have to talk more, Adam,” he says, and Adam nods earnestly, his hands caressing his chest. “We have to talk all the time, when we’re feeling funny and-” he stops for a moment while Adam shoves Kris’ shirt over his head, “-and if I do something that bothers you then you-ahhhhh!” He moans when Adam bites his nipple.
Adam puts his hands on Kris’ waist and moves him to the bed. He follows him until he’s resting all his weight on Kris. Kris blinks. He was saying something, but he can’t remember. It’s difficult to think with Adam trying to undress him. He helpfully raises his hips when Adam pulls down his jeans and underwear, and then slithers up the covers while Adam gets naked.
The first contact of their skin is electric. Adam moves and something cold nudges Kris’ elbow.
“The laptop,” he manages to gasp, and the only answer is the sound of the machine against the floor. He cringes: Adam loves the damn thing. It’s customized; it has his name engraved with Swarovski crystals, a special edition. He’s going to be monumentally pissed off when he realizes he’s thrown it on the floor. Then Adam burrows his nose under Kris’ ear and any coherent thought flies from Kris’ brain.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” Adam says, and Kris agrees. Oh, how he agrees. Talking implies Adam’s mouth leaving his neck. Adam’s tongue is…right there, caressing the place that makes Kris’ entire skin melt.
He closes his eyes, overcome by an overload of sensations. He’s surrounded by Adam’s smell, his touch and the gorgeous noises he makes: his pants, his half whispered words and the hiss of his uneven breathing.
He moves his fingers through Adam’s hair, to make him stop, to keep him there. He’s not sure of what he wants, exactly. Heat crawls down his chest and pools in his stomach, and his hips move upwards without his consent. Kris feels Adam’s smile against the sensitive skin of his neck, and with a last lick, he raises his head and kisses Kris sweetly on his mouth.
“I think talking is overrated,” he says, and for a moment, Kris doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It takes him two, three seconds to remember, because Adam is naked besides him, all pale skin, dusty freckles and smooth hair. He’s having trouble concentrating.
Adam dives down again, his target obvious: Kris’ chest. He touches one of the nipples with his tongue before attaching his whole mouth to it. It feels glorious. Kris arches his back from the bed, baring his neck when his head falls back. He bites his lip, and tangles both his hands in Adam’s hair.
“Wait,” he tries, but Adam just sucks harder. “Adam,” he calls desperately, and Adam releases one nipple only to turn his attention to the other. Kris gasps when the licking turns into sucking and Adam’s fingers wrap around his sides.
Kris pulls forcefully at Adam’s hair, and he finally moves his mouth from Kris’ chest.
“Talking is important,” he says, and then he has to kiss Adam’s mouth because it’s swollen and red, and no makeup ever is going to make Adam look as amazing as he does right now, heavy lidded, hair in disarray and skin flushed. It’s a small kiss, short, because what he has to say is urgent. He starts again. “Talking is important, Adam, and we have to make sure we’re making each other happy. I don’t care how sappy it makes me sound, or whatever. The first thing I’m doing is telling you that I love you, okay? I love you.”
He has his eyes locked with Adam, so he’s ready when Adam tries to hide his gaze from him. He tugs at the locks of black hair between his fingers, and Adam serious eyes rise to find his again.
“I love you, and I’m sorry I’m an asshole who doesn’t know how to make you feel secure,” he says. There’s something dark in Adam’s eyes, something remote that he can’t reach, and Kris swears to himself that he’s going to make it disappear. He has a whole lifetime , after all.
Adam shakes his head. “It’s not your fault, Kris. Honestly, I’m a mess and-”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a freak, thanks for loving you and so on,” Kris interrupts him. He smiles. “Enough remembering songs from our first albums, I think.” It makes Adam smirk, and Kris drawls, “Where were we?”
“Why, I think we were right…here” Adam says, and his hand darts down their pressed stomachs to hold Kris’ cock. The contact makes him shudder and he rocks into it a little, as much as Adam’s weight allows him, into Adam’s grip, slow and so fucking perfect he wants to shout.
“Yes,” he hisses, his feet flat on the bed to gain some leverage. “Yes,” he repeats, when Adam rolls his hips against Kris’ adding pressure where it’s more needed. “Yes,” he says once again, when Adam releases him and his hands dive under him to grab his buttocks so he can grind down on Kris.
Adam’s cock is hot against his own, throbbing in rhythm with Adam’s breathing. When Kris rolls his hips, Adam’s breath hitches, and the answering tremor in his cock is ridiculous and hot at the same time. He shifts and Adam gasps, he rolls his hips sideways and Adam moan. He can’t believe he’s the one in control, not when Adam is all but draped around him, over him, limiting his movements and robbing him of his breath.
Adam says, ”Oh, shit,” and moves faster, his knees sinking in the mattress, and Kris knows he’s close. He can almost taste it, after all this time he’s attuned to Adam’s rhythms, he knows the sounds Adam makes when he’s close to coming. Adam’s hand forces Kris’ thigh up and up, until his leg is draped over Adam’s hip, to make himself a space between Kris’ legs. And it’s good, so good, so familiar and so dear. Adam makes this little sound Kris loves, a high hitched gasp that means he’s starting to come, and that’s Kris’ trigger. He can’t help but come as well.
He has Adam’s rough breathing in his ear, his heat blanketing him, and when he comes, he has Adam’s skin between his teeth, the smooth skin where shoulder becomes neck, the tendon rigid against his lips. He doesn’t mean to bite, but he doesn’t regret it. He wants to mark Adam. A need he’s not able to fight, so he doesn’t. Adam is going to wear his mark for a while, and when it’s almost gone, he’s going to put another one, even bigger, in exactly the same place.
Plain for everyone to see.
“You bit me”, Adam says, but he doesn’t sound angry.
“Your point?” Kris asks, idly. He’s playing with Adam’s chest hair, tugging lightly. Adam chuckles, and the sound reverberates in his chest, under Kris’s ear. They stay in silence for a while, just breathing each other in.
They haven’t moved. Kris’ discarded white shirt is a casualty of war, because the bathroom seemed too far to walk when their legs were still made of rubber. (Obviously, Adam’s t-shirt is safe. “It’s Armani, you philistine!” he had said, horrified when Kris suggested using it to clean up. Adam is a diva.)
“So…” Adam starts, and Kris hums in response. “You love me, right?”
“When I’m not busy wanting to strangle you, yes, I love you just fine.” Kris says in a monotone. Adam chuckles again.
“I have to call Lane and tell her to cancel the brunch, but I don’t know where the hell my cell is,” he says. “I thought I would abuse this so called love of yours and ask you to find it for me.”
Kris raises his head from Adam’s chest. “You don’t have to cancel, Adam.”
“Of course I do. We can spend the whole day in bed, instead. It wouldn’t be the first time, right?” The lascivious smirk brings hot memories to Kris’ mind. That weekend in the Smokey Mountains was great, definitely worth repeating, but right now, they have serious matters to discuss.
He says, “I don’t mind sharing you for a while, if you’re only mine later.” Adam blushes, and Kris kisses him, another short kiss, because he can’t afford to be distracted. “We’ll have the brunch tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m sending everybody home right after.” Adam concedes. “And you have to be within arm’s reach at all times.” He kisses Kris forcefully.
“Possessive much?” Kris jokes, breathless; Adam’s forceful kisses tend to steal his breath away.
“Scared much,” Adam replies, dead serious, and Kris’ smile freezes.
He gulps. “Oh, Adam,” he tries to say, but Adam is kissing him again, and the words are lost. There are a lot of things Kris needs to say, lot of things he needs Adam to know, because he never wants him to feel unsure again. It doesn’t have to be right now, though. Now he only has to kiss Adam.
They make up unhurriedly for a long while: short kisses, slow ones, and kisses full of promises and regrets. In the end, they just lay there, both heads resting on the same pillow, foreheads touching.
Adam sighs. “I don’t want to be insensitive, but, seriously, I need to find my cell. I can’t twitter without it.”
“The horror! The world wouldn’t survive without your insightful tweets.” Kris says drily.
“Because yours are so full of pivotal information, Mr. `This Is What I Had For Breakfast Today´” Adam says, and bites Kris’ lower lip gently.
“You really should learn to take better care of your technology, Adam, ” Kris says, rising from the bed.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, watching Kris put on Adam’s pajama pants. Kris thinks he’s a feast for sore eyes, sprawled naked on the bed, flushed skin glowing against the dark comforter. He wants to dive into the bed again.
“I’m just saying. Where is your laptop?” he asks and leaves the room, smiling while he hears Adam mumble: “My laptop?”
He’s in the landing when he hears the shout. “Oh my God! Kris, Glitzy is on the floor! What the…baby, what happened to you? Are you okay? My poor, poor baby!”
Kris chuckles and goes downstairs to get some water. And maybe some sandwiches, too. He has the feeling they’re going to be pretty busy the next few hours.
When he’s crossing the hall, his cell beeps signaling a few missed text messages. He picks it up, and his heart stops when he notices all of them are from Brad.
“Tell A. u <3 him, asshole.” He reads. The next one: “A is madly in <3 with u, he’s sparkly but stupid, u have to b patient.” Another one: “I’ll cut u open if u make him unhappy, bitch. I know where u live.” The last one makes him laugh out loud. “Remember: plaid is not acceptable brunch attire, Kristopher. Have some standards. <3, Cheeks.”
He’s going to buy Brad the glitteriest fedora of the city, as a thank you.
“Kris!” Adam shouts from upstairs. “Come here right now! We’ve already had the Tender, Loving Sex part, but we still have some heavy Making Up Sex waiting!”
Kris’ eyes widen. Make Up Sex? That sounds awesome.
“Could it be sex against the wall?” He shouts back, and waits a moment for the answer.
“Only if you bring me up some water!” is Adam’s reply.
Kris runs to the kitchen. Maybe fighting’s not such bad idea, after all.
Fin.
This entry was originally posted at http://aneas.dreamwidth.org/10721.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Author:
aneas
Word-Count: 10 500.
Rating: Mature
Pairing: Adam/Kris.
Disclaimer: This portrayal is entirely fictional. Not for profit, just for our entertainment.
Warnings: The guys are both assholes. No, really. They are.
Betas: My sweet, sweet
cookie57. This is totally her fault. Believe me. This fic was 2 000 words long before she read it for the first time.
Notes: In this fic, Kris is the author of the song “The truth” instead of Pat Monahan & Toby Gad.
Summary: Kris feels like he should say something, something meaningful, that can sum up their relationship: beautiful parting words maybe, or even cruel ones, but something better than this horrible silence that stretches between them.
It’s no use. He’s always been shit at meaningfulness. With enough time, Kris usually comes up with profound, moving things. With enough time and distance, he even turns those things into songs.
Right now, looking at Adam, all he can come with is: `How did we let it end like this, so dreadful, so empty? When did we stop being enough for each other?´
“Oh,” Adam says. “I forgot to tell you. Tomorrow we’re hosting a Sunday brunch here at home.”
Kris turns around, the socks he was trying to sort all but forgotten, and looks at him. “What?” he asks, disbelievingly.
Adam doesn’t even raise his eyes from his laptop. He’s sitting on their bed, his back resting against the headboard. “I’ve had the most hellish week ever, sorry I forgot to mention it.” He looks up then and offers Kris a vague smile, but turns back to his work almost immediately. “But don’t worry, it’s a simple thing, just thirty, forty people tops.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Kris feels compelled to ask, because this can’t be happening. This is the first weekend they both can spend at home without any commitment at all since… Kris can’t remember when. And Adam singlehandedly managed to turn it into a huge production, which honestly? Kris should be used to by now.
“No, I’m not,” Adam says, still focused on his laptop. Kris has to drop the pair of socks he has in his hand, because the urge to throw them at Adam’s head is pretty overwhelming. He forces himself to put them into his drawer and closes it with care, breathing slowly.
He can’t loose his cool. He can’t.
“And how in hell are we going to organize this simple thing of yours on such short notice, Adam?” It’s amazing how stable his voice sounds, considering his gritted teeth. He doesn’t need to turn around to watch Adam; his reflection in the mirror is enough.
“That’s what catering is for, Kristopher,” and the Duh! tone pushes Kris over the edge. Patronizing little shit.
“You know you’re an asshole, right?” he says, his voice cold, and Adam finally raises his head. He has the nerve to look surprised, like he really doesn’t know what the problem is.
“Wha-” he tries to talk, but Kris is on a roll.
“Do you really think that less than twenty four hours is enough time to put a brunch like this together?” He asks, and Adam furrows his eyebrows. “Do you know the kind of preparation it takes? Where are we going to find the catering? What are we going to eat? Do we have enough space?”
He turns and crosses his arms over his chest. Adam’s bemused expression would be funny in any other situation. Right now, it just angers Kris even more.
Adam opens and closes his mouth twice, and then giggles nervously. “Are you listening to yourself? When did you turn into Martha Stewart?”
“Fuck you!” Kris snaps. Adam stops laughing abruptly. His eyes widen, and Kris can relate. Wow. He swore and he meant it. That’s a first.
He’s as surprised as Adam, because being a good host has never been a great concern for him. Kris is the kind of guy that considers a party a success if there’s enough pizza and beer for everyone. He can’t believe he’s acting like this, either. Really.
“Whoa, let’s take a step back, okay?” Adam says, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I don’t know what the problem is here, but I’m sure we can talk about it.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about it,” Kris says with venom. “Who’s coming? When will they arrive? How long will it last? Do I even know the guests? At least one?”
He comes closer to the bed. Adam shakes his head. “I don’t-”
Kris raises both his eyebrows. “Does Lane know about this brunch, Adam?” he asks, and Adam’s guilty flinch is answer enough. Fantastic. So now Adam’s PA knows more about Kris’s household than he does. Maybe he should call her to sync his schedule with Adam’s. He’d have better information for sure. “She took care of everything, didn’t she? There’s a party in my house tomorrow and I’m the last one to know.”
“Cut the crap, Kris!” Adam says, and rises from the bed. “And they say I’m a drama queen! I told you I’m sorry I forgot. I’ll try not to do it again. But stop the guilt trip, okay? It’s just a fucking brunch!”
“No, it’s not!” he shouts, and his voice is trembling. It scares him. He’s a singer; his voice is his instrument. Kris shouldn’t lose control of it so easily. “The brunch is just a…a fucking metaphor of how small my place in your life is. Like not knowing if you’re coming home at dinnertime, or if you’re going to be out of town for the next week until the last possible second, okay? It’s about how you shut me out of your life!”
“Are you insane?” Adam shouts back. Kris feels the bite of his fingernails in the palms of his hands. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little? It’s just a brunch, Kris; it’s not about our relationship. I don’t deserve a fucking screaming match just for wanting to have some friends at my house once in while.”
“I wish it was once in while! This house is…like Graceland, it’s so full of people all the time!” Kris watches Adam roll his eyes. “You know I’m right!” he says, and his voice quivers. Fucking quivers. Great.
Adam is looking at him like he’s grown a new head, his evil twin’s head or something. “Yeah, whatever,” he says finally, and walks out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Kris shouts, following him to the landing.
Adam doesn’t stop, he just yells over his shoulder while he goes down the stairs. “Out! You’re being unreasonable and I’m going to give you some time to chill out.”
Like a kid. Adam is dismissing him like a kid having a tantrum. Kris grabs the wood of the stairs rail so tight his knuckles are almost white. “That’s very mature, Adam, leaving me alone again.”
Adam stops by the table at the entrance and looks up. “How could you be alone in a house full of people, Kris? Make up your mind.” There’s so much scorn in his voice that Kris sees red.
“Adam, I’m warning you: don’t go.”
Adam looks at him in silence. Then, slowly, deliberately, takes his denim jacket and puts it on. “Or else? What are you going to do, retreat a little more into your bubble? Shut me out? And that would be different from the way you act now, how, exactly?”
“We have to talk!” he says, and how’s that for irony? Talking about his relationship has always been as foreign an activity to Kris as macramé.
“Not now! Not when whatever it is that crawled up your ass and died has you so worked up that you can only shout at me at the top of your lungs. That’s not the kind of conversation I care to have, thank you.”
Impasse. They look at each other through the silence in their hall. Kris’ heart is beating madly; he’s sure Adam can hear it.
“Believe me, right now its better if we just take a break from each other, Kristopher,” Adam says, and the sane part of Kris’ brain, the part that didn’t run off to Bermuda, knows that Adam is trying to be reasonable. But the certainty in his voice, the implicit `I know better than you’, fills up Kris’ stomach with bile.
“Okay, run away, fine!” he spits back.
Adam’s nostrils flare before he turns around and takes his keys from the table. “Fine!” he yells in turn, and slams the door behind him.
The loud sound of the door closing behind Adam makes Kris shut his eyes.
When he’s sure he’s not going to lose it, he opens them again. The only noise in the empty house is Kris’ shallow breathing, and he has to sit down on the stairs, the adrenaline leaving his body, rendering his knees weak. He shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts, trying to understand what the hell just has happened.
He just had the worst fight of his life.
Kris isn’t used to huge discussions. His marriage kind of died of its own accord, what with him being on tour almost all the time, and with Katy’s reluctance to fit the role of the pliable trophy wife his label wanted her to play. They both agreed it was better if they divorced, and the whole situation was very civilized and mature, and they parted ways on friendly terms. Mostly. (Okay, so Katy cried for, like, a month, and Kris was depressed and every night he wrote dark, dejected songs that his assistant systematically burned when morning came; but, all in all, Kris considers his divorce a rather painless process, once you take out the guilt and the shame and the wretched expectations of family and friends, and the eight months of mourning, of course. And, hey, they only fell back in bed together twice. Kris considers it a win.)
Kris guesses that’s why he wasn’t pleasantly surprised when he found out that a relationship with Adam comes with a lot of drama and weird situations that he can barely understand, let alone navigate correctly without arguments.
He knows Adam has a temper, and he knows Adam’s very passionate about his goals, his family and all things that glitter; but it’s painfully obvious Kris isn’t prepared for the level of craziness surrounding Adam’s life. He’s been trying to be level headed about the one hundred people Adam needs around him on a daily basis, and about the “three rooms destined to be a closet” thing, and the way Adam can’t ever say for sure when he’ll be home. He smiles tightly every time he wakes up and he finds strangers, armed with make up brushes, drinking his coffee in the kitchen; he just shrugs if paparazzi yell at him on the street, asking if he minds how cozy Adam and Tommy were in their last public appearance; and Kris just bites his tongue and assures Adam it’s all right when he calls Kris to cancel yet another lunch date because this “interview just came up, Kris, and it’s huge, I swear I’ll make up it to you later, babe!”
On the whole, Kris thinks he’s been pretty accommodating with Adam’s tight schedule and crazy entourage. Clearly being accommodating and being okay isn’t the same thing, as his reaction to Brunch-gate shows. He wonders how long this situation has been brewing. Probably a long, long time, judging by how fast it turned ugly.
He sighs. Sometimes being oblivious is good, but this is not one of those times. Kris would like to have known he was so close to the boiling point. Mostly, so he doesn’t act like an irrational asshole. (In his defense he has to say that the lack of self-awareness is totally an Allen trait, along with the not noticing the feelings of the people around him until they, literally, smack Kris in the head with them. His mother says so, and his father never denies it, so it must be true. His DNA sucks.)
Kris knows he is, probably, one of the most clueless people ever, but it’s obvious even to him that they evidently don’t talk about their feelings very much, or at all. It looks like there are a lot of things they want to tell each other but never manage to. It’s a shame Kris apparently decided to do it screaming at the top of his lungs and with the worst timing ever.
He admits that Adam was probably right. They need some time apart. Kris is not like Adam, who can give a coherent discourse while he’s stoned out of his mind. Even under the best of circumstances, Kris babbles a lot and makes no sense at all. He needs some time to clear his head and compose some sort of speech that gets his point across and doesn’t make him look like a hysterical teenager if he wants to clear the air with Adam.
He gets up and walks down the stairs so he can busy himself tidying the sitting room. There isn’t exactly a mess. It’s just his half empty cup of tea and honey, his book and the blanket he used last night until Adam woke him up when he came back from the party. He folds the blanket and picks up his glasses from the floor. Sometimes it looks like all he’s been doing lately is waiting for Adam to come home.
Kris is in the kitchen, rinsing the cup under the water when a horrible idea punches him in the stomach. Adam said they should take a break from each other. He was talking about a few hours, right? He didn’t surely mean…breaking up? Like, for a while?
No.
No, that can’t be. Adam didn’t mean that. He didn’t. He can’t be so cavalier about them breaking up, not when the mere idea is chilling Kris’ blood.
He shakes his head. It’s just a fight, nothing more. Kris is overreacting again. It was a hard, nasty fight, okay; but just a fight. Nobody’s going to break up. This relationship is not over.
But once the idea is planted in his mind, it’s difficult to forget it. What if Adam wants them to break up, what if he finally realized that he’s better off without Kris? He’s so scared his hand trembles when he puts the cup in the cabinet. It never felt like this with Katy. Kris was sad when it ended; sad and disappointed, but weirdly (and guiltily) relieved, too. He’s not feeling relieved right now. He’s rather frightened, to be honest.
Maybe the reason this situation is overwhelming him, is that he’s not experienced enough. His only serious relationship was with Katy, and they never fought like this, not even when their tempers were at their worst during the divorce. Of course they had discussions, what marriage doesn’t? But they never attacked each other like Adam and Kris just did.
Whenever Kris raised his voice, Katy’s eyes would grow huge, and she would bite her lip, and put her arms around herself, trying to be even smaller, and Kris would end up feeling like an asshole.
Adam’s personality is far more volatile than Kris’. He talks big, he laughs loud, he loves strong. Everything is a production with him: his shows and his parties, even his clothes are unpredictable. It stands to reason that his personal life would be the same.
The worst part is that Kris knew it all along. He knew Adam would eventually get bored with him, with their tedious and ordinary life. That’s why he’s been so lenient with having Adam’s friends at home all the time, that’s why he never gets angry if Adam wants to go out every night he’s not on tour or recording. He doesn’t want Adam to feel he’s missing something because he’s with Kris, or that his life has to change drastically because he’s in a relationship with the dullest guy on Earth.
Kris walks out of the kitchen and sits on the sofa. He stays there for longer that he wants to admit, even to himself, waiting for Adam to come back to assure him that he wasn’t serious. He can see Adam’s phone on the entrance table. So much for calling him to know when he’ll be back. The only thing he can do is stay put and wait for him to come back home.
He waits.
Kris wakes up at five in the afternoon, a terrible pain in his neck from falling asleep on the sofa. He realizes that he’s been waiting for Adam for almost eight hours. There’s no message on his cell, so he runs upstairs to their room to check their answering machine, because by now, he’s frantic with worry. But there’s no message there, either. Kris wants to kick something, anything, preferably something that belongs to Adam, because it’s one thing running away from home in the middle of an argument, but it’s another thing entirely not calling the whole day to assure your partner that you’re not lying dead in a ditch.
And there it is, the cold anger he didn’t know was missing from his stomach comes back again, and the rush is so sudden and strong that it makes him almost dizzy. He’s never been this angry with Adam before. How could he disappear like that? Doesn’t he care he’s driving Kris crazy with worry?
That’s it.
Kris decides that if they’re acting like teenagers, he better go all the way and pack his things, because if Adam thinks that Kris is going to wait for him at home like nothing happened, he has another thing coming. He’s not the only one that can run away from home. When he throws his overnight bag and his toiletries kit on the bed, Adam’s laptop switches on, a half written e-mail on the screen.
Kris isn’t a jealous person. He’s never felt the need to control Adam’s phone calls, or to read his messages. He already knows that half the planet is in lust with Adam, so there’s no sense in driving himself mad over things he cannot change. Kris trusts Adam; he knows firsthand that Adam’s not a cheater, and Kris knows that he’d be the first to know if his boyfriend wanted another person. Adam is nothing but honest, he’d tell Kris immediately.
So it’s not lack of confidence that makes him lift up the computer and start to read the message. It’s subject line, with capital bold letters read: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE.
Who was he writing the email to?
Oh.
Brad.
It looks like he was writing a message to Brad when Kris and Adam started to fight. He closes his eyes for a second, and tries to convince himself that he’s not doing this; he’s not reading Adam’s personal mail to his ex.
He lasts exactly three seconds.
Who’s he trying to fool? He was doomed the moment he discovered the mail. If Adam is still in love with Brad, if he still considers Brad the love of his fucking life, then Kris has to know it.
He rubs the back of his neck and starts to read.
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:34:04 -0500
Subject: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE
From: Glitterbaby@gmail.com
To: Cheekstodiefor@hotmail.com
Brad,
Do you remember how I used to say that I would never love again if we ever broke up? That I would never find another person to love the way I loved you? I was so sure you were the love of my fucking life. Hell, I even told people YOU were the love of my life, just because my heart actually shattered when we broke up. It certainly felt that way. Every second we spent apart it was a fucking nightmare; and that first week I hardly ate or even showered at all. It was the most horrifying experience of my life, and I thought that if I ever had to live through something like that again, I would lose my mind.
I wanted to fall in love again, and I tried, but it was like a game, you know? Like pretending the relationships were real, that I was involved, that I loved them. And you smiled; because you of all people around me, you were the one that knew that it wasn’t love. You had the real thing once, the real me, and you knew the difference.
It’s been you for so long. I compared them all to you. They all lacked something, because they weren’t you. Too tall, too nice, too sweet, too bitchy, not southern enough, not Brad enough. It wasn’t fair, I know, but…it had been you for so long, that I couldn’t really help it.
The email doesn’t end there, but Kris has to stop because by now, his hands are trembling so bad the lines are starting to blur, and he’s going to drop the computer. He blinks and looks at his reflection in the big mirror over Adam’s dresser. He’s pale and his legs are shaking. The sunset light coming in the room makes him close his eyes. It’s not raining, he thinks stupidly. How come it’s not raining? It always rain when people get their heart broken in the movies.
What is he supposed to do? How can he live with Adam now that he knows that Adam is still in love with Brad? For a second, he wonders if he should leave the computer where he found it, act like he never read it, like he doesn’t know. Out of sight…would it really be out of mind? It hurts to breathe, he can’t think.
And then, a movement behind him makes him turn, and Adam’s in the doorway, his lips tight.
“I believe I have the journal I wrote when I was fifteen somewhere around, if you’re still in the mood for violating my privacy,” he says, his voice cold, and Kris flinches.
He knows Adam’s right, and he should apologize, but he has no time before Adam comes into the bedroom. “I never thought you could sink so low, Kristopher,” he says, curling his upper lip contemptibly, taking his computer from Kris’ hands.
Overwhelming, choking anger makes Kris talk. “Don’t try to distract me, Adam. You’re the one that-that…” He can’t say it, however, and he stops for second, trying not to yell. But he needs to know; he deserves to know, damn it!
“Were you with Brad all day?” Kris asks, because he’s not very perceptive, but sometimes he has these flashes, like a sudden rush of certainty, and right now they’re telling him that Adam’s been with Brad.
“Yes.”
Kris sits down on the bed before his knees give out and he falls down and humiliates himself.
“How could you?” he says, pain choking him and making his voice small.
Adam tilts his head and looks down at Kris. “He’s always been my closest friend,” he says, and from the tone of his voice it’s obvious he says it just to hurt Kris, but it stings all the same.
Kris closes his mouth and his teeth snap. He narrows his eyes. “ How convenient, having him at your corner all the time.”
Adam snorts. “Cut the crap, please. The whole world is in your corner, or don’t you remember? I’m the asshole who turned perfect Kris Allen into a poof and broke his ideal marriage to his high school sweetheart.”
Adam better not talk about Katy. “I’m warning you, Adam, don’t mention her.”
“Why not? I thought it was `Bring back the exes day.’” He takes off his jacket and sends it flying over the chair in the corner. “So far it’s been a riot!”
Kris feels his hands close in fists on his lap, and makes a conscious effort to relax them. “It’s not fun at all, and you know it.”
He can’t believe this is happening to him. He’s going to wake up any moment and this is going to be a nightmare. His gaze rests for a moment on the clock by his bed table, and he notices the hour, really not caring. “This is the worst day of my life,” he says aloud, and he wonders absently why his voice sounds so far away.
They need to talk. They need to clear things up, because this is not supposed to be like this. They have to be sensible, talk like mature people. He has to make an effort and be rational.
He looks up at Adam. “I was worried, you could’ve called to tell me you were fine.”
Adam nods, sarcasm dripping like molasses from his words. “Yes, I can see how worried you were by the way you rushed to pack your things.” He signals Kris’ stuff over the bed with a tilt of his jaw.
Oh, God. “What did you want me to do, then?” Kris says through clenched teeth.
“Nothing? Like you’ve been doing until now?” Adam’s eyebrows are up, and he raises his hand to his chest in fake shock. “Sorry, was I supposed to guess this was the day you showed some initiative?” The fucker even flutters his eyelashes. Full Scarlett O’Hara mode, Adam’s style.
Kris bites his lip and counts to ten in his head. Adam’s histrionics are never a good sign. “You’re not being very mature, Adam.”
Adam ends the innocent act and glares at him. “And you’re a patronizing little shit, Kristopher. It wouldn’t have killed you to show some interest in me.”
“How?” Kris asks. “Honestly! What were you expecting? For me to chase after you.?”
Adam turns his head and crosses his arms over his chest.
Kris snorts. “Grow up, Adam. Life is not a fucking soap opera. You’ve got other thing coming if you actually think I’m going to run after you when you pull your vanishing act.”
Adam looks at him. “You’re mistaken. I wasn’t expecting you to follow me. That would’ve shown that you actually care for me. Or for this relationship.”
“Come on!” Kris shouts. He can’t believe it. “You’re kidding me! You can’t honestly believe that I’m not invested in this because I refused to look for you after you stomped off!”
“It’s just an example, Kris!” Adam runs his hand through his hair. “You’re as detached from this relationship as you could be without living in another country, and that’s a fact.”
“The irony is killing me,” Kris enunciates slowly, getting up. Adam narrows his eyes. It looks like some of his antics are rubbing off on Kris, too. Go figure. “Most of the time, I feel like you’re the one out of the country for all the attention you give me.”
“Oh, poor you!” Adam mocks. “Feeling a little neglected? Maybe I should put my life on hold just to take care of your needs, like a good little wife, right?” He comes closer, smirking, and tries to touch Kris’ face.
Kris slaps his hand, taking a step back, and Adam’s eyes harden. “But wait, you already had one of those and it didn’t work out so well, did it?” His smirk is vicious.
“I told you not to bring up Katy,” Kris warns. He can feel how fast his heart is pounding. He’s a little scared of himself, actually, because so far this conversation is totally out of character for them both, and he has no way of knowing what he would he do if Adam cornered him.
“Don’t worry, I won’t even mention her precious name.” Adam snaps. He comes closer, but Kris refuses to let Adam intimidate him, so he doesn’t back off when Adam takes another step.
“This is not about her at all. It’s about you, Kris. About how detached you are. You’re so passive in your relationships you even wrote a song about it!”
Kris doesn’t know what Adam means. He frowns, and Adam snorts in disbelief. His voice takes a derisive edge. “The elephant, the roof, `easier than telling the truth’? Rings any bells, dear?”
Kris feels the ugliness hit him with an unexpected fist in his chest. He stares at Adam with incredulity. Adam didn’t just use Kris’ words against him, he didn’t take Kris’ feelings and doubts when he was at one of his most vulnerable moments and twist them into a weapon against Kris. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He only stares.
He wants to say: `Who the hell are you? I don’t even fucking know you´; but maybe it’s better he’s speechless, because he fears that if he tries to talk he’ll start bitching or crying, or maybe even punching Adam; so he just takes a step back and then another, until he feels the solid reassurance of the closet door against his back.
If he thought he was heartbroken before, he was mistaken. He blinks, trying to focus, trying to put things into perspective, because he feels like all he knew about Adam was false, and he’s not sure he likes this new person in front of him very much.
Adam raises an eyebrow and his smirk is almost nasty, ugly, and Kris wonders if he will ever get past his new perception of Adam. If he can overcome the fact that everything he thought he knew about him could be false.
He feels the irrational need to laugh, but makes an effort to choke it back. He’s afraid it’ll come out hysterical in some way. There’s nothing funny about the fact that right now he kind of hates Adam, and that’s something he honestly never thought would happen.
“I don’t think I can be with you right now,” he finally says. He’s proud his voice isn’t shaking. He turns and begins to open the closet door to take out some clothes. “I’m out of here, in a few days I’ll-”
Adam’s closed fist hits the door and pushes it back in place. Kris doesn’t flinch.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He growls in Kris’ ear.
“Save the caveman act for one of your twinks, Adam. It doesn’t work with me,” he replies calmly, not bothering to look at him. Adam bangs his hand on the door, again.
“Answer me!” he shouts, and Kris inhales, surprised. Adam is so close, the heat of his body warms Kris’ right side. He turns his head and looks Adam straight in the eye.
“I don’t know where I’m going. A hotel, Cale’s,” he shrugs. Adam tightens his lips, and Kris’ reckless side makes him say, just for the hell of it, “Katy’s, maybe. I’m always welcome there.”
Kris knows that Adam is big, and he knows that Adam uses it to his advantage sometimes. But he’s never used it to intimidate Kris before, so when Adam closes the remaining distance between them to loom over him, Kris feels an unexpected thrill. Adam’s hand closes around Kris’ arm.
“Like hell you’re going to your wife’s” he says, and Kris wants to object to Katy’s status, but he has to admit that Adam’s bared teeth and flaring nostrils are menacing. He has Kris cornered against the closet door with his bulk and Kris doesn’t like the feeling.
“Let me go, Adam,” he says, evenly. Adam scowls, and Kris tries again. “I want you to get off me.”
Adam just looks at him without blinking. “You’re going nowhere.”
It’s unfair how gorgeous Adam is, Kris thinks. Even now, tense, with dark circles under his eyes and wrinkles in his forehead. His black hair is all over the place, roots showing. It doesn’t matter if he wears make up or not, Adam always looks amazing to Kris, and now is no different. Kris wants to touch his face, badly.
He’s no longer angry, even though he wants to be. If he’s angry he’s numb, and he needs that numbness like air, right now. At the moment, he can’t afford to feel. He needs to summon his anger from somewhere deep inside, at least until he’s out of here. Every second they’re together they’re hurting each other, and Kris is afraid that they’ll say something beyond repair at any moment.
“This morning you said that we should take a break,” he tells Adam, and the hand in his arm clenches. Adam looks like someone just punched him in the stomach. “I think it’s a good idea.”
He lies through his teeth, because just thinking about it makes him want to puke.
Adam simply says, “No.”
“I don’t care,” Kris says, and when Adam’s hand tightens again, he tries to shake it. “You’re hurting me, Adam.”
For a second, he thinks Adam is not going to release him. But after two or three heartbeats, he does. He even takes a step back, and Kris immediately feels something tight inside him come loose.
“I didn’t say we should take a break,” Adam says. Kris tilts his head. “Well, I did, but I didn’t mean it like that,” he amends, and Kris notices he’s awfully pale, too.
“So it wasn’t just an excuse to run off to Brad?” he asks, sarcastically. Instantly, he wants to kick himself for asking. It doesn’t matter what Adam says; Kris already knows the truth.
Adam sighs. “We were getting pretty worked up, Kris. I’m not nice when I’m angry. I needed to cool off before I said something I would regret, okay? I needed to calm down.”
Kris snorts. “Good luck with that. You look cool as a cucumber to me, right now, with all the angry shouting and the door punching.”
Adam closes his eyes. Kris curls his lip. “So you went away to calm yourself. Why did you come back even angrier, then?”
Adam doesn’t answer; he just raises his hand and signals towards Kris’ suitcase. The message is clear enough. ‘You were leaving.’
For a while, Kris just stands in silence. The room is getting dark, the sunset’s almost over. If he’s going, he should call for a taxi. He’s too wired to drive. He’s still resting against the door, and he inhales sharply before he straightens up. The distance between his feet and the bed, just three steps, looks as wide as a desert.
He tries to, but he can’t take those three steps.
It feels like he should say something, something meaningful that can sum up their relationship: beautiful parting words maybe, or even cruel ones, but something better than this horrible silence that stretches between them.
It’s no use. He’s always been shit at meaningfulness. With enough time, Kris usually comes up with profound, moving things. With enough time and distance, he even turns those things into songs.
Right now, looking at Adam, all he can come with is: `How did we let it end like this, so dreadful, so empty? When did we stop being enough for each other?´
He opens his mouth to say `Why didn’t you tell me you still love him?’ but what comes out instead is: “I have to go.”
Adam narrows his eyes, and then makes a conscious effort to relax. He just looks at Kris for a minute. Finally, he says, “I don’t want to break up,” in a quiet voice, and Kris rests his head against the door, the relief so overwhelming he feels like he’s twenty pounds lighter.
He closes his eyes, mostly to not let loose the hot tears he can feel building behind his eyelids. He feels something warm making itself a home in his throat, forcing him to take quick small breaths.
“But I’ll do it, if you want me to,” Adam continues, and Kris opens his eyes to look at him.
Adam is sitting on the bed, his arms resting on his thighs, his head down. He’s not looking at Kris, his eyes fixed on his boots. Kris remembers those boots. He bought them for Adam on his last trip to New York. Adam blew him for half an hour to thank him.
The memories hurt, but he shouldn’t be surprised. It hurts to breathe; it hurts to think. It obviously hurts to remember. The only problem is that it’s hard to stay rational when everything hurts.
Adam doesn’t want to break up. He just said so. But does he want them to stay together like this? That’s not so clear. And more importantly, does Kris want the same?
Does he?
No. He can’t stay and witness how they tear down their relationship, turning everything ugly. Last time he let his marriage die. He’s not going to make the same mistake. He’s going to save what they have; he’s going to make it work. It doesn’t matter what it takes: Kris will fight. He’s going to make Adam forget Brad, he’ll use every dirty little trick he knows of, and he’ll wipe Brad from Adam’s mind. Forever.
Kris is so surprised by this realization, by this unexpected spark of confidence, that when he straightens up, he trips. Still on the bed, Adam stretches his long arms to catch him, but Kris jerks back without thinking. He can’t bear Adam’s touch right now. Adam looks surprised at his reaction, hurt, then resigned. He tries to hide his face, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, and Kris flinches. He’s making it worse. He has a little moment of doubt. Maybe he should take his bag and go away, make a clean exit and leave Adam behind, before they manage to destroy each other in the process of demolishing their relationship.
“We can’t go on like this,” he says, without conscious thought, and Good Lord, when did his mouth decided to open without his consent?
“I…I see,” Adam says, but it’s clear he doesn’t, and it angers Kris.
“No, you don’t,” he spits, and take two steps forward, until he’s almost between Adam’s knees. “Look at me,” he says, and Adam raises his head, his mouth a thin pale line. “This isn’t working, and you know it. You’re not happy, and neither am I.”
If only Adam loved him, if only Kris had the slightest reassurance that Adam still believes they have any chance to make it work…then everything would be easier, Kris would feel more secure.
Adam opens his mouth, but Kris stops him, his thumb resting over his lips. “Do you…are you still a little in love with me, at least?” His voice breaks at the end, but he doesn’t cry.
“How can you ask me that?” Adam’s lips move under Kris’ finger, and he pulls it back. Adam looks betrayed. “Didn’t you read my email? What else do I have to do?”
The email. Kris doesn’t want to think about it. He glares. “I want to hear it from you,” he demands. “Answer me.”
If Adam is in love with another person then he’ll have to say it to Kris’ face, because Kris isn’t giving up on him without a fight. If Adam wants out, he better man up and say so. Passive shit won’t work this time. Kris is tired of letting things happen to him.
Adam’s eyes are cold when he answers. “You know I love you.”
Kris takes a relieved breath. That’s the important part, Kris can make it work if Adam still loves him; he’ll do better, and he’ll work fucking miracles if that’s what it takes. He only needs Adam to want it, too. He gulps, before he asks, “Enough to try to make it work?” And if he chokes a little when he asks, he acts like it didn’t happen.
“Of course!” Adam’s tone makes clear that he’s cross.
“I’m going to try, too.” He bites his lip, and fights the urge to caress Adam’s head, to comb his hair with his fingers. The temptation is hard to resist. “We won’t talk about Brad anymore, okay? I’m going to-”
“Stop with the Brad stuff, Kris!” Adam says, loud. “I know I shouldn’t have written him about us, but sometimes it’s hard! He knows me, he understands me better than anyone and I…” he stops. He takes a breath. “Sometimes it feels like he’s the only one that gets why I feel the way I feel with you.”
Kris doesn’t understand. What does Adam mean `write about them’?
Adam is still talking. “And he says I’ve been hiding, that I’m not-”
“Wait a minute, Adam, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.
“The email,” he replies. “Where I told Brad that…you know,” he finishes, lamely.
It looks like he can’t admit out loud. “That you still love him,” Kris says, keeping his tone steady despite how much it hurts. “That he’s the love of your life.”
“What? NO!” Adam shouts, and rises up, forcing Kris to take a few steps back. “It doesn’t say that!”
He kneels by the bed, opens the laptop and presses multiple keys, insistently. “It doesn’t say that,” he repeats, looking earnestly at Kris, pleading with his eyes to believe him while the laptop switches on.
Kris wants to tell him that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t care that Adam is still a little in love with Brad, even if it’s not entirely true. Kris has decided that he can love Adam enough to make him forget anybody else. He’s going to take care of everything.
Adam gives him the laptop; he thrusts it into his hands, urgently. “Read it,” he says. “Do it. You’ll see.”
He’s not sure he can read the email from the beginning again, so he barely pauses to reread the first lines. They leave a bitter taste in his mouth, anyway.
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:34:04 -0500
Subject: THE LOVE OF MY FUCKING LIFE
From: Glitterbaby@gmail.com
To: Cheekstodiefor@hotmail.com
Brad,
Do you remember how I used to say that I would never love again if we ever broke up? That I would never find another person to love the way I loved you? I was so sure you were the love of my fucking life. Hell, I even told people YOU were the love of my life, just because my heart actually shattered when we broke up. It certainly felt that way. Every second we spent apart it was a fucking nightmare; and that first week I hardly ate or even showered at all. It was the most horrifying experience of my life, and I thought that if I ever had to live through something like that again, I would lose my mind.
I wanted to fall in love again, and I tried, but it was like a game, you know? Like pretending the relationships were real, that I was involved, that I loved them. And you smiled; because you of all people around me, you were the one that knew that it wasn’t love. You had the real thing once, the real me, and you knew the difference.
It’s been you for so long. I compared them all to you. They all lacked something, because they weren’t you. Too tall, too nice, too sweet, too bitchy, not southern enough, not Brad enough. It wasn’t fair, I know, but…it had been you for so long, that I couldn’t really help it.
I still love you; I think part of me will love you forever, baby. But you’re no longer the one. You’re no longer the love of my life.
I wake up every morning with his bed hair and his bad temper, and I think it’s hilarious when he squints his eyes trying to find his glasses and thrashes everything on the bedside table. His cell never has batteries, and he squeezes the toothpaste the wrong way. He never moisturizes, and he always, always forgets his keys. I even have to phone him all the time to remind him to eat. When I’m on tour, I’m half insane thinking he’ll forget to lock the door, or turn off the appliances. And once, he put a new suede shirt in the washing machine and ruined it!
And guess what? I don’t mind. I’m so fucking in love with him it’s stupid. It’s ridiculous, really. I love him so much that I don’t mind plaid, for heavens sake. I love him so much, that I pretend I don’t mind when he flirts with everything that moves, in this absentminded way of his, when you know I’m the most possessive bastard if I’m in love.
I am so fucking in love with him that I don’t let him see how much it hurts when he doesn’t say “I love you” as freely as I do.
I used to think you were the love of my life.
Now I have him and I’ve learned the difference.
I hope someday he’ll forget Katy completely. I hope I can make him forget he ever belonged to someone else, someone easier to love than me. Don’t think I don’t love Katy, I do; she’s fierce and all, but she’s this little cute thing, all sunshine and rainbows, with her perfect skin and her perfect smile, and it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t compete with that.
It’s useless.
Yes, I know you said I should give him time, but we’ve been together for more than a year, and he stil-
When he ends it, he can feel that his cheeks are hot. How could he be so wrong? How could he think, even for a moment that Adam would cheat on him?
He looks down, ashamed. “I thought you were cheating on me.” He admits. His hands are shaking and he gives back the laptop to Adam, who tosses it carelessly on the bed. His eyes don’t even leave Kris’ face for a minute. “I thought you…that Brad and-” he starts.
Adam interrupts him. “I don’t care. But, do you believe me now?”
“Then, why-” he chokes. He can feel tons of words trying to get out of his mouth like an avalanche. “If you love me like that why don’t you…YOU’RE ALWAYS OUT!” He shouts. “You’re always doing stuff, and going to clubs and to openings and to premiers, and when you’re home there’re always so many people around that I can’t-I can’t-” he stops.
He feels like he’s going to burst into tears. Adam doesn’t look any better. He lowers his face until he hides it from Kris’ eyes, his forehead on the quilt.
“You act like you don’t care,” he says, and his voice cracks too. “Like it doesn’t matter if my tour lasts two more weeks, or if I grope Tommy onstage for fifteen minutes. You just smile and I-I don’t know what to do! You never say you love me and it…it kills me, okay? It kills me.”
God, they’re a mess. They’re so messed up it’s not even funny. Kris kneels by Adam’s side and rubs his back. He rests his head on Adam’s arm, his smell overpowering everything.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s lame, inadequate, but he can’t think, he has nothing better to offer.
“Yeah,” Adam chuckles, but it’s not a happy laugh. It sounds muffled. “I know that you’ll eventually realize that I’m not exactly what you need and it’d better if I’m not used to having you around.”
What? That only makes sense in Adam’s demented world.
“Do you honestly believe that?” Kris asks, appalled. He angles his head until he meets Adam’s eyes. They look dejected. “Do you believe that I’m going to wake up one day and say, `Hey Adam, it was fun, see you around!´? Do you honestly think so little of me?”
“Do you honestly think that I would be with you if I’m in love with someone else?” Adam counters. “Up until now, you were sure I was cheating on you with Brad.”
“And I still wanted to make it work!” Kris shouts. “I was ready to fight him for you, Adam.”
Adam looks at him, his eyes wounded and his mouth a tight line of despair. Kris gives in and puts his hand on Adam’s jaw. “I was ready to fight him,” he repeats, “and you know I would totally lose because he’s feisty and knows how to use his nails.”
“He totally does.” Adam’s smile is sad, but he’s smiling at least.
They stay like that for a while, until Kris lowers his head and kisses Adam briefly on his lips. Adam gasps, and then he wraps his arms around Kris and kisses him properly.
It feels like a first kiss of sorts. It’s tentative, gentle, like they’re carefully testing a new understanding between them. It’s so sweet and so sad that Kris wants to cry. They’re kneeling on the floor, by their bed, shadows slowly filling the room; the only sound is their breathing.
Adam turns his body toward him; he never releases the hold he has on Kris’ arms. When Kris tries to move away, just to catch his breath, Adam tightens his grip and forcefully pulls him across his lap. Kris gasps and tangles his fingers in Adam’s hair. He’s trapped between Adam’s body and the bed. There’s barely any space; Adam’s belt buckle is digging a hole in his stomach and the wood of the bedside is stuck in his kidneys. He doesn’t care; if somebody asks, he’s never been more comfortable.
Kris’ heart is fluttering insanely in his chest; the arms encircling him are his anchors. Without them, he’d be floating. He thinks he can feel the thump of Adam’s heart in response, but then Adam tilts his head just so, and does some swirly…thing with his tongue that makes Kris’ toes curl in his shoes, and Kris’ brain dies of overload. It’s chanting Adam, Adam, Adam, on repeat, again and again; like a never-ending mantra.
This is it, this is where he wants to be. Kris is never going to move again from Adam’s lap. Recording is going to be a bitch, with Adam and Kris joined at the hip, but they’ll have to deal with it at the label.
Adam’s hands roam down his back, his body wrapping Kris’, and he’s kissing Kris with total concentration, like they have all the time in the world, like he has to re-learn Kris by taste, like he has to pass a test.
That’s what Kris has been missing, being the focus of Adam’s total attention. He’s missed the way Adam made him feel at the beginning: like he couldn’t believe they were together, like if he took his eyes of Kris, he would disappear. Adam’s attention on him was like his air, and Kris has been struggling without it for so long.
“I missed you,” he blurts out, and Adam kisses his jaw and then his mouth. “I missed you,” he repeats when Adam releases him, because for some reason it seems terribly important that Adam knows it.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Adam says, punctuating each word with a kiss on Kris’s neck. “I didn’t want to depend on you, I was scared that you’ll-”
“Shut up,” Kris begs, and because he needs to silence him he rolls his hips against Adam. This is his fault as much as Adam’s. They’re both responsible for this distance between them: Kris’ passivity and Adam’s insecurities, the worst combination possible.
They had been so close to losing everything. “We have to talk more, Adam,” he says, and Adam nods earnestly, his hands caressing his chest. “We have to talk all the time, when we’re feeling funny and-” he stops for a moment while Adam shoves Kris’ shirt over his head, “-and if I do something that bothers you then you-ahhhhh!” He moans when Adam bites his nipple.
Adam puts his hands on Kris’ waist and moves him to the bed. He follows him until he’s resting all his weight on Kris. Kris blinks. He was saying something, but he can’t remember. It’s difficult to think with Adam trying to undress him. He helpfully raises his hips when Adam pulls down his jeans and underwear, and then slithers up the covers while Adam gets naked.
The first contact of their skin is electric. Adam moves and something cold nudges Kris’ elbow.
“The laptop,” he manages to gasp, and the only answer is the sound of the machine against the floor. He cringes: Adam loves the damn thing. It’s customized; it has his name engraved with Swarovski crystals, a special edition. He’s going to be monumentally pissed off when he realizes he’s thrown it on the floor. Then Adam burrows his nose under Kris’ ear and any coherent thought flies from Kris’ brain.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” Adam says, and Kris agrees. Oh, how he agrees. Talking implies Adam’s mouth leaving his neck. Adam’s tongue is…right there, caressing the place that makes Kris’ entire skin melt.
He closes his eyes, overcome by an overload of sensations. He’s surrounded by Adam’s smell, his touch and the gorgeous noises he makes: his pants, his half whispered words and the hiss of his uneven breathing.
He moves his fingers through Adam’s hair, to make him stop, to keep him there. He’s not sure of what he wants, exactly. Heat crawls down his chest and pools in his stomach, and his hips move upwards without his consent. Kris feels Adam’s smile against the sensitive skin of his neck, and with a last lick, he raises his head and kisses Kris sweetly on his mouth.
“I think talking is overrated,” he says, and for a moment, Kris doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It takes him two, three seconds to remember, because Adam is naked besides him, all pale skin, dusty freckles and smooth hair. He’s having trouble concentrating.
Adam dives down again, his target obvious: Kris’ chest. He touches one of the nipples with his tongue before attaching his whole mouth to it. It feels glorious. Kris arches his back from the bed, baring his neck when his head falls back. He bites his lip, and tangles both his hands in Adam’s hair.
“Wait,” he tries, but Adam just sucks harder. “Adam,” he calls desperately, and Adam releases one nipple only to turn his attention to the other. Kris gasps when the licking turns into sucking and Adam’s fingers wrap around his sides.
Kris pulls forcefully at Adam’s hair, and he finally moves his mouth from Kris’ chest.
“Talking is important,” he says, and then he has to kiss Adam’s mouth because it’s swollen and red, and no makeup ever is going to make Adam look as amazing as he does right now, heavy lidded, hair in disarray and skin flushed. It’s a small kiss, short, because what he has to say is urgent. He starts again. “Talking is important, Adam, and we have to make sure we’re making each other happy. I don’t care how sappy it makes me sound, or whatever. The first thing I’m doing is telling you that I love you, okay? I love you.”
He has his eyes locked with Adam, so he’s ready when Adam tries to hide his gaze from him. He tugs at the locks of black hair between his fingers, and Adam serious eyes rise to find his again.
“I love you, and I’m sorry I’m an asshole who doesn’t know how to make you feel secure,” he says. There’s something dark in Adam’s eyes, something remote that he can’t reach, and Kris swears to himself that he’s going to make it disappear. He has a whole lifetime , after all.
Adam shakes his head. “It’s not your fault, Kris. Honestly, I’m a mess and-”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a freak, thanks for loving you and so on,” Kris interrupts him. He smiles. “Enough remembering songs from our first albums, I think.” It makes Adam smirk, and Kris drawls, “Where were we?”
“Why, I think we were right…here” Adam says, and his hand darts down their pressed stomachs to hold Kris’ cock. The contact makes him shudder and he rocks into it a little, as much as Adam’s weight allows him, into Adam’s grip, slow and so fucking perfect he wants to shout.
“Yes,” he hisses, his feet flat on the bed to gain some leverage. “Yes,” he repeats, when Adam rolls his hips against Kris’ adding pressure where it’s more needed. “Yes,” he says once again, when Adam releases him and his hands dive under him to grab his buttocks so he can grind down on Kris.
Adam’s cock is hot against his own, throbbing in rhythm with Adam’s breathing. When Kris rolls his hips, Adam’s breath hitches, and the answering tremor in his cock is ridiculous and hot at the same time. He shifts and Adam gasps, he rolls his hips sideways and Adam moan. He can’t believe he’s the one in control, not when Adam is all but draped around him, over him, limiting his movements and robbing him of his breath.
Adam says, ”Oh, shit,” and moves faster, his knees sinking in the mattress, and Kris knows he’s close. He can almost taste it, after all this time he’s attuned to Adam’s rhythms, he knows the sounds Adam makes when he’s close to coming. Adam’s hand forces Kris’ thigh up and up, until his leg is draped over Adam’s hip, to make himself a space between Kris’ legs. And it’s good, so good, so familiar and so dear. Adam makes this little sound Kris loves, a high hitched gasp that means he’s starting to come, and that’s Kris’ trigger. He can’t help but come as well.
He has Adam’s rough breathing in his ear, his heat blanketing him, and when he comes, he has Adam’s skin between his teeth, the smooth skin where shoulder becomes neck, the tendon rigid against his lips. He doesn’t mean to bite, but he doesn’t regret it. He wants to mark Adam. A need he’s not able to fight, so he doesn’t. Adam is going to wear his mark for a while, and when it’s almost gone, he’s going to put another one, even bigger, in exactly the same place.
Plain for everyone to see.
“You bit me”, Adam says, but he doesn’t sound angry.
“Your point?” Kris asks, idly. He’s playing with Adam’s chest hair, tugging lightly. Adam chuckles, and the sound reverberates in his chest, under Kris’s ear. They stay in silence for a while, just breathing each other in.
They haven’t moved. Kris’ discarded white shirt is a casualty of war, because the bathroom seemed too far to walk when their legs were still made of rubber. (Obviously, Adam’s t-shirt is safe. “It’s Armani, you philistine!” he had said, horrified when Kris suggested using it to clean up. Adam is a diva.)
“So…” Adam starts, and Kris hums in response. “You love me, right?”
“When I’m not busy wanting to strangle you, yes, I love you just fine.” Kris says in a monotone. Adam chuckles again.
“I have to call Lane and tell her to cancel the brunch, but I don’t know where the hell my cell is,” he says. “I thought I would abuse this so called love of yours and ask you to find it for me.”
Kris raises his head from Adam’s chest. “You don’t have to cancel, Adam.”
“Of course I do. We can spend the whole day in bed, instead. It wouldn’t be the first time, right?” The lascivious smirk brings hot memories to Kris’ mind. That weekend in the Smokey Mountains was great, definitely worth repeating, but right now, they have serious matters to discuss.
He says, “I don’t mind sharing you for a while, if you’re only mine later.” Adam blushes, and Kris kisses him, another short kiss, because he can’t afford to be distracted. “We’ll have the brunch tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, but I’m sending everybody home right after.” Adam concedes. “And you have to be within arm’s reach at all times.” He kisses Kris forcefully.
“Possessive much?” Kris jokes, breathless; Adam’s forceful kisses tend to steal his breath away.
“Scared much,” Adam replies, dead serious, and Kris’ smile freezes.
He gulps. “Oh, Adam,” he tries to say, but Adam is kissing him again, and the words are lost. There are a lot of things Kris needs to say, lot of things he needs Adam to know, because he never wants him to feel unsure again. It doesn’t have to be right now, though. Now he only has to kiss Adam.
They make up unhurriedly for a long while: short kisses, slow ones, and kisses full of promises and regrets. In the end, they just lay there, both heads resting on the same pillow, foreheads touching.
Adam sighs. “I don’t want to be insensitive, but, seriously, I need to find my cell. I can’t twitter without it.”
“The horror! The world wouldn’t survive without your insightful tweets.” Kris says drily.
“Because yours are so full of pivotal information, Mr. `This Is What I Had For Breakfast Today´” Adam says, and bites Kris’ lower lip gently.
“You really should learn to take better care of your technology, Adam, ” Kris says, rising from the bed.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says, watching Kris put on Adam’s pajama pants. Kris thinks he’s a feast for sore eyes, sprawled naked on the bed, flushed skin glowing against the dark comforter. He wants to dive into the bed again.
“I’m just saying. Where is your laptop?” he asks and leaves the room, smiling while he hears Adam mumble: “My laptop?”
He’s in the landing when he hears the shout. “Oh my God! Kris, Glitzy is on the floor! What the…baby, what happened to you? Are you okay? My poor, poor baby!”
Kris chuckles and goes downstairs to get some water. And maybe some sandwiches, too. He has the feeling they’re going to be pretty busy the next few hours.
When he’s crossing the hall, his cell beeps signaling a few missed text messages. He picks it up, and his heart stops when he notices all of them are from Brad.
“Tell A. u <3 him, asshole.” He reads. The next one: “A is madly in <3 with u, he’s sparkly but stupid, u have to b patient.” Another one: “I’ll cut u open if u make him unhappy, bitch. I know where u live.” The last one makes him laugh out loud. “Remember: plaid is not acceptable brunch attire, Kristopher. Have some standards. <3, Cheeks.”
He’s going to buy Brad the glitteriest fedora of the city, as a thank you.
“Kris!” Adam shouts from upstairs. “Come here right now! We’ve already had the Tender, Loving Sex part, but we still have some heavy Making Up Sex waiting!”
Kris’ eyes widen. Make Up Sex? That sounds awesome.
“Could it be sex against the wall?” He shouts back, and waits a moment for the answer.
“Only if you bring me up some water!” is Adam’s reply.
Kris runs to the kitchen. Maybe fighting’s not such bad idea, after all.
Fin.
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