Fic: Melt Into Time (1/3) (Kris/Adam; American Idol)
Title: Melt Into Time
Summary: When Kris finds out that Adam has gotten engaged, he makes a hasty decision and takes a step backwards.
Pairings: Kris/Adam; Kris/other, Adam/other
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Word count: ~23,800. Fantasy elements. Future-fic. Brief discussion of off-screen domestic violence. Title taken from "Broken Open". Art by katekat1010.
“So, I proposed to Nick earlier tonight,” Adam said and he was trying to sound casual but Kris could hear his excitement even through the phone. “We're thinking of a summer wedding.”
Kris opened his mouth to respond and managed to say, “Wow.”
“I know! Four years and we're finally getting around to it,” Adam said, practically bubbling over with joy.
Kris wanted to sound as happy as Adam did, but his tongue didn't want to work.
“And- and I was hoping that you'd be my best man,” Adam said, his voice slowing down a little. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” Kris said, and his voice actually cracked and he felt like smacking himself.
“Is it- I thought you and Katy were okay now, but if-”
“We are,” Kris said, because this was something that he could talk about. “I'm really glad she's happy. I am.”
Which Adam should know, since Adam was the shoulder he'd cried on after he and Katy had signed the papers, the person Kris had dragged to Katy's wedding two years ago, and the guy who'd set Kris up on a string of half a dozen blind dates before Kris had just thrown his hands up and told him to stop because, really and truly, he was over Katy and he didn't need to prove it by sleeping with random women.
“Oh, that's good,” Adam said, and Kris was glad that he hadn't gotten a video phone, no matter how indispensable everyone claimed they were, because Adam seeing his face right now would not go well. “Are... do you want to be my best man?”
“I'd love to,” Kris said, firmly. “I'd do anything for you, you know that.”
“Goes both ways,” Adam said. If they were in the same room, this would be when Adam would loop his arm around Kris's shoulders and pull him in, tight and warm. “Hey, I'll be seeing you in a couple of weeks, right? We can go over the details.”
“Looking forward to it,” Kris said. Then they said their goodbyes and Kris held himself together for that long.
He wasn't the sort of guy who cried, not as a rule, but Kris felt that an exception could be made in this case. So, he shed a few tears, refrained from punching any of the walls in his hotel room, and decided to go for a walk to clear his head.
What he had to do was get all this stupid, repressed pining bullshit out of his system before he saw Adam again. It was, he reminded himself, his own damn fault anyway, falling in love with his best friend.
Kris had chosen this hotel for many reasons, and one of them was that it promised live music every night. Tonight, drinking and music both seemed like equally good ideas, so he went down to the first floor and headed in the direction of the bar.
He heard the music before he reached the room, a familiar and lovely refrain. The door to the hotel bar was propped open and the man behind the piano was playing to a nearly empty room - just him, the bartender, and one very drunk couple kissing in a corner booth. Kris quirked a tiny smile at the bartender, a twentyish blonde girl who blushed at him, either out of recognition or something more basic than that, and he slid his hand along the bar as he walked toward the piano. She paced him, asked if he wanted anything to drink.
"Vodka with a twist," he said, sitting down on the stool nearest to the piano, listening as the piano man finished up April in Paris. He wrinkled his nose as he downed the drink, and it was stupid to think that drinking Adam's favorite made them in any way closer at this moment in time, but he ordered a second one anyway.
A new song started up and Kris snorted in amusement. He spun around on his stool, taking in the pianist, who was throwing himself into the music, eyes closed. He had close-cropped hair and thick eyebrows, both light brown, and he was attractive enough, in his own way.
"Apple blossom in the far west orchard, petals falling perfectly," Kris sang softly, wrapping his voice around the words. "You and I could live there, darling - darling, darling, come with me." The man playing slowed down, then stopped, opening his eyes to stare at Kris, who grinned at him. "Fan of Matt Giraud?"
"As I recall, that song was written by one of his good friends," the man said. He chuckled, shaking his head. "Sorry - wasn't expecting Kris Allen to actually walk into this bar, even if I knew you were staying here. My name is Lenny. Lenny Lewinsky." Lenny stood up and offered his hand and Kris slid off the stool and went over to shake it. When he was done, he stayed, leaning against the piano.
"You played it well," Kris said.
"Can't sing a lick, though," Lenny said. "But we all do what we can. It's a gorgeous tune."
"First one I ever wrote entirely for someone else," Kris said. He bit down on his lip thoughtfully. It'd been at least five months since he'd seen Matt, though they'd talked on the phone maybe three weeks ago. "I was glad that it worked out for him."
"Yeah, it was pretty popular for quite a while," Lenny said. He spread out his hands, gesturing toward the keys. "So, anything you want me to play, I will. Or if you wanted to take over, I'd be honored."
Kris rubbed his palm against the smooth gloss of the piano. "I do have something rattling around inside my head."
"A new Kris Allen?" Lenny asked, sliding over to the far end of the bench. "I'd never wipe the keys down again." Kris settled himself down next to Lenny, his fingers seeking the sound in his head - starting with a diminished triad. Lenny let out a soft grunt. "Not a happy song, I take it."
Kris breathed deeply, in and out, and let himself find the melody, releasing himself into the music.
"It's a waltz," Lenny said, quietly. "You don't write many of those. Does- does it have words?"
Kris played it through once, discovered the beats and chords that made up the chorus and - yes - there were words now, right on the tip of his tongue. "By the time I fell for you, you'd gotten over me a dozen times over." Once he'd started, the rest flowed out, and his eyelids slid shut as he sank into the song, let the three-four take him away.
"By the time I looked your way, you'd found someone else to gaze at." There was always this soft joy in Adam's eyes when he looked at Nick. Ah, Nick, who had firmly refused to go the way of Drake, Martin, or Perry. Nick, another artist, who loved to sketch Adam nude. Generous, friendly, perfect Nick. Really, couldn't ask for a better guy. And if Kris were the person he told Adam he was, he would be happy right now that Adam had found someone so wonderful.
"Every day, my love grows-" Kris's voice swelled up, filling the room. "-but that's impossible. You'd know impossible; you live it, each moment." His voice caressed the last two phrases, lingering and drawing them out.
"I fell in love too late; my heart broke today, but yours-" He jumped the octave and, despite the ache inside, he couldn't quite help from smiling a little when he reached just above and landed the note. "-broke years ago."
"And your smile is the smile of a man who's in love, but you aren't smiling at me." He allowed his voice to glide back down a little, the melody circling around. "By the time I fell for you - by the time I knew it was true; it was far - oh, my star-" His voice trembled as he hit the high note, near the edge of his range. "- it was all far too late."
His fingers kept going, playing the melody one last time, and he'd essentially just outed himself in front of a handful of strangers, but Kris couldn't quite bring himself to care. In as little as half a year, he was going to have to watch while Adam got married-
No, it was worse than that. He was going to need to give a speech about how amazing Nick and Adam's love was; how happy Adam was to have Nick in his life. He wouldn't be allowed to get drunk and watch the ceremony from the back row; he wouldn't be able to cut out of the reception early. Adam deserved better from him than anything like that.
His hands shook as they stilled over the keys and when Lenny touched his shoulder, he jerked away, fingers crashing down with a discordant mess of noise. Kris slid his fingers off the piano, pressed them down against the bench, hard enough to make them ache just a little.
"It's like that, is it?" Lenny asked and there was no condemnation in his voice, only a quiet understanding. "When it comes to Kris Allen, everyone knows there's no one he's closer to than Adam Lambert. But it's still not close enough."
"It doesn't matter," Kris said, and he must have put everything he had into the song, because there was no strength in his voice. He felt... hollowed out, like someone had taken a watermelon baller to his insides and scooped them clean. After he and Katy had had their last fight as a married couple, he'd gone over to Adam's and they'd emptied two bottles of wine and Kris had wanted to kiss him so much. But he'd already been with Nick for almost a year and Kris-
He hadn't wanted to taint their first kiss together with infidelity. He'd always figured that, eventually, Nick and Adam would fall apart. And Kris would be there for Adam, like Adam had always been there for him. They would fit together that way, just like they had in every other way.
"What I feel-" Kris said, shaking his head slightly. "Whatever I might feel, it doesn't matter."
"It always matters," Lenny said, and he slid his hand over Kris's - Kris frowned a little, because Lenny's hand seemed cooler than made sense for the room. "If you could - if you could make a wish, change things... what would you need to do?"
Kris laughed, low and harsh, and he didn't care enough not to talk, even if Lenny planned on walking out to announce to the press that Kris was in love with Adam. "I don't know - turn back time, maybe? Go back before... before any of it. Before I knew Adam. Before I married Katy, because the whole world knows how badly I screwed that one up. Start over."
"And if I told you that you could?" Lenny asked and the way he said it grabbed Kris's attention. When he turned his head to look at Lenny, he was struck by the man's eyes, gray and watery - colorless. Had they been like that before? "There would be a cost, of course, but these things are possible."
"What's the going rate for a second chance these days?" Kris asked flippantly, but there was a strange knot in the pit of his stomach.
"You won't be able to tell anyone," Lenny said. Kris tilted his head, glanced around - the bartender wasn't moving, her hand caught in the act of polishing a glass clean. Kris licked his lips nervously and twisted around to look at the couple in the corner - they, too, seemed frozen in a moment. Lenny was still talking. "That sounds easy, but it isn't. A lie like that is hard to keep."
"Not- not that I'm believing you, but what would happen if I did?" Kris asked, not able to take his eyes away from the couple - twisted up into each other, mouths open, but not moving at all. "If I told someone."
"The magic ends; you lose the guy," Lenny said. "Standard procedure."
"Standard," Kris repeated, his voice unsteady as he turned around on the bench to face Lenny, pulling his hand out from under Lenny's cold one. "And... and that's it? That's the only price. There has to be more to it than that."
"This is a once-in-your-lifetime offer," Lenny said, and he held out his hands, both palms up. "No one gets two second chances."
Kris glanced down at Lenny's hands, trying to keep his breathing even. "Why me? Why are you offering this to me?"
"We repay our debts," Lenny said and he sounded, of all things, amused.
"I didn't-"
"No one said that it was a debt to you that we're repaying," Lenny said - then he looked away, toward a corner that didn't seem to hold anything special. "Time's growing short, Kristopher. The moon never stops moving."
Maybe he was dreaming. Or trapped in some odd form of performance theater and any second a camera crew would burst out from behind something. Or maybe-
Kris licked his lips, his hands settling into Lenny's, who wrapped his fingers around Kris's wrists. "A formal acceptance is required," Lenny said. His eyes seemed brighter now, as if a light was shining off of them. "Please repeat after me: I, Kristopher Neil Allen, wish time to be spun backwards for the sake of-" Lenny paused for a moment, and his stare felt like it went far too deep. "- let's call it 'true love', shall we?"
Kris shivered at the slight edge to Lenny's voice, but he'd already started speaking. "I, Kristopher Neil Allen, wish time to be spun backwards-" Lenny's fingers tightened, digging into the tendons of Kris's wrists. "-for the sake of- of true love."
"I accept the consequences and bind myself to silence," Lenny said. "Knowing that my wish may be nullified if I speak of it to a single soul." As Kris repeated the words, he could hear them echoing in the room, as if it were bigger and had far better acoustics than he remembered. "I bind my promise into my blood, sealed to myself and the universe."
"-and the universe," Kris finished. As soon as he was done, Lenny smiled - a very sharp smile - and he tugged on Kris's wrists, yanking him forward. Lenny's cold lips were on his and a pain like dozens of pinpricks filled his mouth and then-
-he overbalanced, his hands slipping. He only barely kept himself from hitting his chin against the piano bench and everything around him seemed dark. He blinked and there was no one in front of him, but his mouth was wet. He reached up and touched it, his fingers coming away red with blood. He pushed himself up on the bench and looked over at the bartender - but she was gone and the bar had been cleaned up, and the tables had their chairs resting upside down on them.
The room was empty, the lights out, and he was completely alone. Kris pushed himself away from the piano and went to the door, relieved that it was only locked on the outside.
Kris got back up to his hotel room in something of a daze, stumbling into the bathroom and flicking on the light. He wiped the blood away from his mouth and... and he was clean underneath, no injuries that he could see. He dampened a washcloth and carefully cleaned his mouth off. When he went back out to the main room, he noticed that he'd left his phone on the bed.
There was one missed call on his personal line - from Adam - so he went through to voicemail.
“Are you-” There was a slow, deep breath from Adam, the kind he took when he was upset and trying to center himself. “Kris, honey, I get the feeling that you weren't telling me everything before. If something's bothering you, I want to help. Call me back, okay? I don't care what time it is. There's nothing more important than- just call me.”
The cheerful automated voice informed him Adam's message had been left five hours ago. Which pretty much had to be impossible but- when Kris looked over at the hotel alarm clock, it confirmed the time. He'd gone downstairs around eleven and it was now edging past four in the morning. Kris flopped down on the bed, trying to figure out how he'd lost five hours.
It was probably too late to call Adam without waking him up, so Kris set his alarm for nine and crawled into the bed, taking off his shoes but not bothering to change out of anything else. He'd expected to toss and turn for a while, but his eyes drifted shut before he had time to worry about Adam's phone call or the freaky-weird encounter he'd had downstairs.
It wasn't an alarm that woke him up the next morning, though, but an unwelcome beam of sunlight attempting to bore directly into his brain. “Oh, fuck me,” Kris said, covering his eyes with his hand.
“What have they been teaching you at college, son?”
Kris froze, because- because that was...
He slowly uncovered his eyes, and tried not to burst into tears. “Papa?” he asked, husky and low, and that couldn't be real. Except there his dad was, standing right in front of him, clear as day.
“What's wrong, buddy?” His dad asked, pushing Kris's feet back and sitting next to him on the- on his parents' couch. He was sitting on his parents' couch and his dad was here. “You haven't called me that in- oh, at least eight or nine years. Was your fight with Katy that bad?”
Kris pinched his own arm, as hard as he could, and it hurt like a son of a bitch, but his dad was still there. Still there and giving him a look like he figured that Kris was crazy.
Which maybe he was, if he was seeing dead people.
“Not a dream,” he whispered, and then he stopped himself. The magic ends. He launched himself at his dad, buried his face in his dad's neck, breathed in. How had he forgotten that his dad always smelled a little bit like sandalwood? “Dad, I-” Nothing that he wanted to say would make any sense, though, so he cut himself off.
“She'll forgive you,” his dad said, holding him tightly. “Whatever happened, Katy loves you.”
He remembered this morning, the first time this morning had happened. In retrospect, it had been a stupid fight, the kind of thing that only mattered when the people involved were already exhausted and getting on each other's nerves. After he'd gotten back from spending the night at his parents', he and Katy had made up pretty easily.
It had been while they were making up that day that he'd come up with his idea about how to propose to her and he'd started working out the details, figuring out the song and the notes and everything. So, when he thought about it, this really was the perfect day to start over.
“I'm not sure it matters,” Kris said, softly, because he had to begin somewhere. Because- if this was real and it was pretty fucking hard to deny the evidence right in front of him, then making up with Katy was the last thing that he wanted to do. “I don't think- I don't think that me and Katy are going to make it.”
“What do you mean, baby?” his mom asked, and he looked up to see her hovering in the doorway. She looked good, bone-deep content in a way that he couldn't remember her looking in the last three years. “How can any fight be that bad?”
Kris held out his hand and she came over to take it, sitting down on his other side on the couch. “It's not Katy, mama. It's me.”
And she cradled his hand in both of hers and waited for him to go on. He glanced back over at his dad, tightened the arm he had wrapped around his dad's shoulders.
“I think... I think I might be gay,” he told them and he wasn't even sure, when he was saying the words, if they were true. But they were true enough, because his stomach still tightened and his chest ached when he thought of Adam getting married to someone else. “So, it wouldn't really make much sense to get back together with Katy.”
His mom's hands tightened around his and, for a second, it looked like she was going to cry - then she was pulling him against her and he could feel his dad hugging the both of them, and she was crying, whispering, “oh, oh my baby boy,” softly in his ear.
It was kinda uncomfortable, but in a way that he hadn't been able to be uncomfortable in years, so he soaked it in, clinging to them even when they finally started to pull away.
Afterwards, he went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror - trying to take in the changes. Fuck, he barely even remembered looking this young. No carefully cultivated stubble, because he hadn't been trying to impress anyone yet. No sideburns, not really. His face was fatter - baby fat, maybe. No eyeliner or lip gloss, of course. Baggy pants and a shirt that was a size bigger than he tended to wear these days, both of them styles that he probably wouldn't ever wear out in public any more. And the zodiac pendant that Adam had given him five years ago was gone from around his neck.
When Paula had called him 'boyish' all those years ago, he hadn't really gotten it. He'd figured that he was all grown up and he'd been frustrated that she hadn't realized that. Now, though, it was easy to see why she'd said it. He was boyish; youthful and unfinished.
After he was done with the bathroom, he went to his bag and dug out his journal, reading through the most recent pages, trying to make sure that he knew when he was.
He'd been right, pretty much, and though there were some early notes about how to surprise Katy with a proposal in the journal, she wouldn't have had a clue yet. After he re-familiarized himself with 'now', he pulled out a fresh notebook and started filling it up - the dates that he would need to remember in order to do things right, what Adam had told him in late night talks and how long he would need to wait until he should make a move. From what Adam had said, Kris figured his best chance was right after Songs From the Year You Were Born.
No one had ever read his journals in the past, so he would just have to trust that no one would try to do it this time around either. Still, he tried to be oblique enough that it would only make sense to him.
Interacting with his parents was surreal, but wonderful for all that. His mom made a pie and he thanked her with a kiss on the cheek. His dad joked about her needing to make a second pie for the rest of them, because Kris was a 'growing boy' and would eat an entire one by himself. Old traditions that he hadn't experienced in years.
Kris's phone rang and - it was going to be Charles, he remembered. The first time around, he'd whined to Charles about what had happened with Katy and Charles had told him to suck it up and apologize like a man. This time, he didn't even mention the fight with Katy, just casually talked to Charles for a few minutes before letting him go.
It was a strange, shocky moment when he realized that he couldn't call Adam. That if he called Adam, he'd be a random voice on the phone, nobody important. He almost- part of Kris thought that the best plan was to abandon Arkansas now, head to L.A., find Adam before any of the Idol stuff started. Except, of course, that it was the stupidest plan ever. Adam was still in love with someone else. Adam didn't know that his relationship with Brad was going to be over soon; it would be a complete shock to him when it did end.
It was going to be just about a year until he got to meet Adam for the first time.
Even after so many years of being friends, they'd always managed to at least talk on the phone every few days, if they couldn't see each other. And the longest they'd gone without so much as texting had been three days and that had been a one-time thing. Katy used to tease him about it, back when they were still happily married and she thought that his friendship with Adam was adorable. "You and Adam," she would say, "-you're like clingy teenage girls making BFF bracelets and having slumber parties every night."
By the time the word 'divorce' was starting to become a real possibility, she hadn't been teasing anymore. "Fine, go talk to Adam about it-" and, in the worst of the fights, she'd been crying. "-you tell him everything anyway. More than you ever tell me!"
This time around, at least that was something both of them would be able to avoid.
Kris soon realized that burying himself in the preparation for Idol was the only way that he could take his mind off the calendar. He dropped out of college - which his parents had a hard time understanding, though they supported his choices the way they always had, and he was seeing them more often than he had the first time he'd lived this year - and he got a job at a small record store in Jacksonville. Mostly, he practiced. The first time he tried singing one of his own songs, he horrified himself by having his voice crack during his warm-ups - he'd strengthened his voice so much in the years after Idol, had gotten real training in how to use it, and he'd forgotten that these vocal cords hadn't mastered those notes yet. So, that's mostly what he worked on, retraining his voice.
His mouth pulled to the side again when he hit the big notes, so he had to concentrate on fixing that. His fingers were a little clumsy on the piano, though they were still sure and practiced on the guitar, and, overall, it wasn't as hard as he'd feared to get his muscles to learn what he knew they were capable of doing.
He also came out, in a quiet and slow way. Katy was the first person he told, outside of his parents. Three days after the fight, he went to her and they'd gone out to sit under an old oak tree, branches heavy with red and orange leaves.
She listened to his confession with a lowered head and, when he was done, she threw herself at him and whispered "Thank you for trusting me," with her arm wrapped around his neck. She took his hand and told him, very quietly, that she'd suspected it a little.
I didn't, Kris couldn't tell her. The first time he'd kissed a guy had been four days after his first big fight with Katy over not having kids yet. He'd had to go to London and Jake had been there, young and out, a guitarist with another singer's band. They'd kissed just once because, right after, Kris had looked at him and noticed him - tall, dark hair, light blue eyes surrounded by black eyeliner. Kris could remember - he remembered touching Jake's cheek and thinking that it wasn't quite right and that was when everything had clicked for him.
That was when he'd realized he was in love with Adam.
Here and now, though, he could honestly tell Katy that there wasn't any particular guy in his life and since it was the truth, there was nothing in his face to betray him.
Daniel told him that he was crazy, at least a dozen times over - asking that if he was trying to do music seriously anyway, why not go to Nashville and try to get a record deal. Why stick around in Jacksonville if he'd really made his mind up? And Kris couldn't explain, though he did the best he could, saying that he needed to be better than he was to have a chance.
"You've changed so much," Daniel told him, watching as Kris did his morning stretches. "I mean, you've always taken care of yourself but... you used to be relaxed about it. Now, it's like someone's holding a gun to your head every day, the way you drive yourself. Slow down a little, Kristopher."
"I don't think I'm that different," Kris muttered, but Daniel was right - nine years made a big difference, especially since he'd spent eight of those years in an industry where slowing down meant being forgotten. And he couldn't take any chances.
"You haven't gone to church since you came out," Daniel said, quietly. Kris tried to stop himself from flinching. "It's not- no one hates you for being gay."
"Plenty of people would hate me, Daniel," Kris said. "Last time I checked, gay marriage was still illegal in Arkansas."
He shrugged away from Daniel's hand on his shoulder, because if there was one thing that he couldn't afford, it was letting his guard down. All he had to do was say the wrong thing where people could hear and- and he'd need to start thinking up a speech for Adam's wedding. It was worse because sometimes... sometimes, he almost thought it would be worth it if he could just hear Adam's voice, just have Adam say his name again in that fond, familiar tone. Four months in, he was missing Adam so much he could barely breathe.
He'd taken to writing notes to Adam in his journal, though he only addressed them to 'A' as something of a precaution. They weren't anything dangerous and he didn't write down anything too weird - he just wrote things like played Crazy today; thought of you or I miss your laugh or simply still love you.
Katy would drop by sometimes, either at his place or when he was working, and ask him how 'the whole gay thing' was going, if he'd found someone yet.
"-because I worry about you," she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. It immediately fell forward again, rendering the entire gesture pointless. "I mean, I've started to date again - not seriously - but I am trying to see people. I know... I looked up some stuff online and there are a couple of clubs in Little Rock that you could-"
"I'm fine, Katy," Kris said - and she was earnest and young and so very beautiful. He'd been so in love with this Katy, who'd always taken care of him and looked out for him and believed in him more than anyone did until-
"Are you, though?" she asked and he kissed her on the forehead and wrapped his arms around her.
"I will be," he promised.
It was silly, when he went back and thought about it, but - even though he'd already changed so much - he'd expected things to go the way he remembered when it came to the Idol auditions. He went with Daniel and Cale, again, though he had to be the one to suggest it this time. Kris went through the first couple of rounds, and then got cut.
"Honestly, I don't think you need us," the producer said, and Kris nodded and took that in, thanking her.
Daniel wasn't willing to go to the next audition with him - "We got cut once, man, I don't think our chances will improve just because it's a different city." - so Kris ended up going with just Cale, who made it further than he had last time, and Kris was trying to play just enough under what he was capable of, ducking his head down and blushing when they complimented his voice. He'd never be the actor that Adam was, but he wasn't as incapable as he'd once been, either.
When he got through to the judges' round, he called his family to let them know, and his mom insisted on coming up to support him. She brought his dad and Daniel with her. And maybe that was useful because...
They got there the day before his audition in front of the judges, so he was able to talk to them about a lot of stuff, but there was one thing that was particularly important.
"Even if I don't make it through, I'm going to move to L.A.," Kris said, holding his mom's hand gently. He looked around at them and... yeah, he was glad that he was getting the chance to tell them this now.
"Why?" his mom asked and he winced on the inside, because there was an edge of hurt in her voice.
"It's where I need to be," Kris said. "I can't explain why, but I have to be there."
"Is God calling you to California?" his dad asked. "Are you needed there?"
Kris closed his eyes for a moment, a million memories tugging at him - Allison pouting and saying that she couldn't think of anything for Michael Jackson week if Anoop was going to snag the best song; Michael asking Kris, deeply sincere, how it was that Adam could be so nice and still be 'what he was'; Matt grinning at him after White Chocolate had impressed the judges and telling Kris that they were going to go all the way, the two of them; Adam saying bitterly, "I know that to some of them, I'm just a fag-" and he'd flinched when Kris had touched his shoulder; last night talks and confessions; the tour, bright and lovely; the night Adam had said, thoughtfully, "But you are my best friend. Didn't you know that?" - moments that might or might not ever happen this time around, but definitely couldn't happen if he stayed in Arkansas.
"Yeah," he said, quietly. "I'm needed."
So, the next day, he met Ryan Seacrest again for the first time.
"You're from Jacksonville, Arkansas?" Ryan asked him and Kris had to blink before he agreed, biting back the impulse to correct it to 'Conway'. "How's that working out for you?"
"Well, not as good as it could, I suppose," Kris said, his gaze flicking to the camera for a second before he focused back on Ryan. "Considering that I'm here and all." And Ryan laughed, surprised by him, so Kris shot a teasing smile his way. "It's a great town, just... maybe not the best place for aspiring musicians."
"I can understand that," Ryan said. "Are you ready for what the judges will think?"
"I think so," Kris said. "I mean, I'm hoping they'll like it."
"Let's both hope so," Ryan said, clapping Kris on the back. "Good luck in there."
Simon. Paula. Randy. Kara. It was strange seeing them again, too. He'd tried working with Kara a couple of times after the show, but they'd never really clicked as co-writers. He'd run across the others at various events, of course, but Paula was the only one that he'd spent much time talking to, after everything with Idol had ended for both of them. They looked younger, too, especially Simon.
"Now, are you the best singer out there?" Kara asked him.
"Probably not," Kris said, and he grinned at her. "I might be the best one auditioning this year. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to find out."
"Kris, what are you going to sing?" Simon asked and - Simon was leaning forward slightly. Kris was doing "Song for You", since he hadn't seen much point in changing something that had worked last time, but he knew that he probably wasn't singing exactly the way he had before - eight more years of doing his own thing had left its mark on his singing.
"That was actually rather delightful," Simon said when Kris was done, and he was smiling. With everything that had happened so far, this just might be the strangest thing. "You know, there's definitely something about you. Whether it's... an inner confidence or even a certain quiet star power - you have it."
"I agree with Simon completely," Kara said, swiveling in her chair a little. "You stand on that platform like you know you belong on a stage. And you've got the talent to back it up."
"Wow, thank you," Kris said, trying to hide his surprise as best he could.
"Gotta agree with Simon," Randy said. "You've got the skills."
Paula, though, was staring at him thoughtfully and the customary warmth about her was completely gone. "There's something- something wrong with you. Something in the way you... breathe." Kris only barely managed to keep from flinching.
"Are we going to get an elaboration on that?" Kara asked, sounding a little irritated. Paula just shrugged, not looking away from Kris. Kara glanced over at the other two, then smiled at Kris. "Well, that's three out of four, so it looks like you're going to Hollywood."
"Thank you," Kris said, and he was maybe a little too enthusiastic, but- it wouldn't be long now. His hand trembled when he picked up his ticket.
This time, when he came out from behind the curtain, he was surprised to find himself wrapped up in Cale's arms before anyone else reached him, Daniel crashing into the both of them a moment later. His parents were next and everyone was so excited and it was great to get caught up in it.
"So, man, how are you feeling right now?" Ryan asked him and Kris clasped his arm - maybe too familiar for their relationship in this universe, but... fuck it, they'd gotten close the last couple of years, and it was good to see him now that Kris wasn't worrying about his audition.
"Feeling fantastic," Kris said. "Looking forward to the bright lights."
"And I'm looking forward to seeing you there," Ryan said and he wasn't putting on that fake smile of his anymore. He really meant it. "I think you're going to do well. You've got confidence and you've got talent."
"Thanks," Kris said, and he kinda wanted to laugh. Had he really come across as so much less self-confident last time? "See you during Hollywood week."
"Definitely," Ryan said.
It was both better and worse, now that he'd gotten through that round. Because he knew for certain that he was going to meet Adam again, now, but that only made the wait that much more painful.
Which is probably how he ended up jerking off Cale in the back of the guy's car.
It wasn't the sort of thing that he'd have ever done when he was really twenty-three, for any number of reasons, but sex wasn't as scary or overwhelming these days. Yeah, ideally, he wanted commitment and love and everything that came along with that, but mixing a little sex into a friendship wasn't going to kill him.
"I'm not gay," Cale said, after he'd returned the favor. "I love- well, I really like my girl. We're just... going through a rough time right now and she's not- fuck. I wasn't using you either, though. You know how much I love you, man."
"Don't worry about it," Kris said, patting Cale's arm - leaving sticky smears of come on it. "You can still be straight. What's that phrase? Straight but not narrow. You can be that. Whatever. You can even pretend that you got drunk from the half a beer that you had. Lightweight."
"I hate you," Cale said, dropping his head back with a bounce. "With all my heart. Are you really going to stay in L.A., even if you don't make the cut?"
"Is that what this is about?" Kris asked. "You gonna miss me?"
"No," Cale scoffed. "Maybe. I don't know. I guess."
"If I get a record deal, I was thinking of asking you to be in my band," Kris said. "Maybe even if I don't but, in that case, you'd have to be willing to live with me in poverty. In a non-gay way."
Cale didn't say anything right away, but when Kris turned his head to look at him, a wide smile was spreading across his face.
"Yeah," Cale breathed. "I'd like that a lot."
When Kris went to Hollywood for that first week, though, he went alone. And when he got to the big room filled with the rest of the contestants, where everyone was picking up room assignments and introducing themselves around, he felt oddly light-headed. He was in the same building as Adam.
So many faces that he knew - Allison, still wearing braces. Lil, confident and loudly talking to another contestant about her family, showing off her pictures. Alex, skinny as hell.
He picked up his assignment - Matt, of course, like it was last time - and joined into the general introductions, careful not to know anyone's name. Then he saw a shock of black hair, tall figure, couldn't be anyone but Adam.
He kinda froze in place, right there in the middle of the room, just staring.
Adam was dressed down, like Kris remembered from the first time. Trying not to freak people out too much with the real him, he'd explained to Kris once. Not much make up, clothes not too fancy and all black and gray.
Fuck what he was wearing, he was the most beautiful thing that Kris had seen in a year.
Kris rocked on the balls of his feet, fighting the urge to just go over there and wrap his arms around Adam and never ever let go. And that was when Adam looked up.
Adam cocked his head to the side, and someone had been talking to him, but Adam said a couple of things without looking away from Kris, and then walked forward. This wasn't what had happened last time. Kris needed to- whatever Adam was seeing in his face, he needed to figure out how to hide it because Adam wasn't... Adam wasn't ready.
Except that he couldn't quite remember how to move and then Adam was there, right in front of him.
"Hey, there," Adam said. Kris had heard Adam's voice over the last year - having scrounged up every trace of him that existed on the internet - but it was still nothing compared to the way it felt to have Adam with him, right in front of him. Adam's gaze wandered over his face and Kris wondered how easily Adam could read it now, before they knew each other. "I always appreciate a cute boy staring at me. What's your name, baby?"
Adam was holding out his hand. Kris latched onto it, trying to keep himself from holding too tightly.
"Kris," he said and he wanted nothing more out of this moment than for Adam to say his name. "What's yours?"
"Adam Lambert," Adam said, with a cocky grin. "Your next American Idol."
Kris let out a shaky laugh, choking the sound back when Adam stroked his hand instead of releasing it. He was hard, harder than he'd ever been, and he'd missed Adam so damn much and he was screwing this up already. "Hope your voice matches your confidence," he managed to say.
"Oh, it does," Adam said. "So, Kris, got a last name?"
"Allen," he said.
"Kris Allen. That's adorable. Where are you from?" Adam asked. "Some place down south, I can tell by that sweet accent."
"Arkansas," Kris said and he'd been funny and a little bit clever the first time he and Adam had met, so why couldn't he manage that now?
"Of course," Adam said, with a wink. "So, Kris Allen from Arkansas, how many people have you met? How's the west coast treating you so far?"
But they didn't have much of a chance to talk, because it was time to get ready sing on the stage for the first time - Adam started them off, and his voice was as soaring and perfect as Kris remembered it. Soon after that, it was Kris's turn, and he stepped forward to the front of the stage.
Strange, it was almost empty in the audience - more like a soundcheck than a concert, but it was...
It was like coming home.
Kris closed his eyes and he'd sung in this theater, he knew this theater, the way the acoustics worked, exactly which seats had the best views. Adam was standing in the wings - Adam hadn't ever heard him before, not in this world. Kris nodded to himself, took a steadying breath, and sang his heart out.
"You're amazing," Adam said when he got back to the wings, his voice sweet and sincere, and Kris blushed, which he'd really thought that he'd outgrown. Adam reached out and clapped a hand around Kris's shoulder and Kris shivered and moved closer, though they had to separate a little when they sat back down in the audience.
Part Two
Summary: When Kris finds out that Adam has gotten engaged, he makes a hasty decision and takes a step backwards.
Pairings: Kris/Adam; Kris/other, Adam/other
Rating: NC-17
Notes: Word count: ~23,800. Fantasy elements. Future-fic. Brief discussion of off-screen domestic violence. Title taken from "Broken Open". Art by katekat1010.
“So, I proposed to Nick earlier tonight,” Adam said and he was trying to sound casual but Kris could hear his excitement even through the phone. “We're thinking of a summer wedding.”
Kris opened his mouth to respond and managed to say, “Wow.”
“I know! Four years and we're finally getting around to it,” Adam said, practically bubbling over with joy.
Kris wanted to sound as happy as Adam did, but his tongue didn't want to work.
“And- and I was hoping that you'd be my best man,” Adam said, his voice slowing down a little. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine,” Kris said, and his voice actually cracked and he felt like smacking himself.
“Is it- I thought you and Katy were okay now, but if-”
“We are,” Kris said, because this was something that he could talk about. “I'm really glad she's happy. I am.”
Which Adam should know, since Adam was the shoulder he'd cried on after he and Katy had signed the papers, the person Kris had dragged to Katy's wedding two years ago, and the guy who'd set Kris up on a string of half a dozen blind dates before Kris had just thrown his hands up and told him to stop because, really and truly, he was over Katy and he didn't need to prove it by sleeping with random women.
“Oh, that's good,” Adam said, and Kris was glad that he hadn't gotten a video phone, no matter how indispensable everyone claimed they were, because Adam seeing his face right now would not go well. “Are... do you want to be my best man?”
“I'd love to,” Kris said, firmly. “I'd do anything for you, you know that.”
“Goes both ways,” Adam said. If they were in the same room, this would be when Adam would loop his arm around Kris's shoulders and pull him in, tight and warm. “Hey, I'll be seeing you in a couple of weeks, right? We can go over the details.”
“Looking forward to it,” Kris said. Then they said their goodbyes and Kris held himself together for that long.
He wasn't the sort of guy who cried, not as a rule, but Kris felt that an exception could be made in this case. So, he shed a few tears, refrained from punching any of the walls in his hotel room, and decided to go for a walk to clear his head.
What he had to do was get all this stupid, repressed pining bullshit out of his system before he saw Adam again. It was, he reminded himself, his own damn fault anyway, falling in love with his best friend.
Kris had chosen this hotel for many reasons, and one of them was that it promised live music every night. Tonight, drinking and music both seemed like equally good ideas, so he went down to the first floor and headed in the direction of the bar.
He heard the music before he reached the room, a familiar and lovely refrain. The door to the hotel bar was propped open and the man behind the piano was playing to a nearly empty room - just him, the bartender, and one very drunk couple kissing in a corner booth. Kris quirked a tiny smile at the bartender, a twentyish blonde girl who blushed at him, either out of recognition or something more basic than that, and he slid his hand along the bar as he walked toward the piano. She paced him, asked if he wanted anything to drink.
"Vodka with a twist," he said, sitting down on the stool nearest to the piano, listening as the piano man finished up April in Paris. He wrinkled his nose as he downed the drink, and it was stupid to think that drinking Adam's favorite made them in any way closer at this moment in time, but he ordered a second one anyway.
A new song started up and Kris snorted in amusement. He spun around on his stool, taking in the pianist, who was throwing himself into the music, eyes closed. He had close-cropped hair and thick eyebrows, both light brown, and he was attractive enough, in his own way.
"Apple blossom in the far west orchard, petals falling perfectly," Kris sang softly, wrapping his voice around the words. "You and I could live there, darling - darling, darling, come with me." The man playing slowed down, then stopped, opening his eyes to stare at Kris, who grinned at him. "Fan of Matt Giraud?"
"As I recall, that song was written by one of his good friends," the man said. He chuckled, shaking his head. "Sorry - wasn't expecting Kris Allen to actually walk into this bar, even if I knew you were staying here. My name is Lenny. Lenny Lewinsky." Lenny stood up and offered his hand and Kris slid off the stool and went over to shake it. When he was done, he stayed, leaning against the piano.
"You played it well," Kris said.
"Can't sing a lick, though," Lenny said. "But we all do what we can. It's a gorgeous tune."
"First one I ever wrote entirely for someone else," Kris said. He bit down on his lip thoughtfully. It'd been at least five months since he'd seen Matt, though they'd talked on the phone maybe three weeks ago. "I was glad that it worked out for him."
"Yeah, it was pretty popular for quite a while," Lenny said. He spread out his hands, gesturing toward the keys. "So, anything you want me to play, I will. Or if you wanted to take over, I'd be honored."
Kris rubbed his palm against the smooth gloss of the piano. "I do have something rattling around inside my head."
"A new Kris Allen?" Lenny asked, sliding over to the far end of the bench. "I'd never wipe the keys down again." Kris settled himself down next to Lenny, his fingers seeking the sound in his head - starting with a diminished triad. Lenny let out a soft grunt. "Not a happy song, I take it."
Kris breathed deeply, in and out, and let himself find the melody, releasing himself into the music.
"It's a waltz," Lenny said, quietly. "You don't write many of those. Does- does it have words?"
Kris played it through once, discovered the beats and chords that made up the chorus and - yes - there were words now, right on the tip of his tongue. "By the time I fell for you, you'd gotten over me a dozen times over." Once he'd started, the rest flowed out, and his eyelids slid shut as he sank into the song, let the three-four take him away.
"By the time I looked your way, you'd found someone else to gaze at." There was always this soft joy in Adam's eyes when he looked at Nick. Ah, Nick, who had firmly refused to go the way of Drake, Martin, or Perry. Nick, another artist, who loved to sketch Adam nude. Generous, friendly, perfect Nick. Really, couldn't ask for a better guy. And if Kris were the person he told Adam he was, he would be happy right now that Adam had found someone so wonderful.
"Every day, my love grows-" Kris's voice swelled up, filling the room. "-but that's impossible. You'd know impossible; you live it, each moment." His voice caressed the last two phrases, lingering and drawing them out.
"I fell in love too late; my heart broke today, but yours-" He jumped the octave and, despite the ache inside, he couldn't quite help from smiling a little when he reached just above and landed the note. "-broke years ago."
"And your smile is the smile of a man who's in love, but you aren't smiling at me." He allowed his voice to glide back down a little, the melody circling around. "By the time I fell for you - by the time I knew it was true; it was far - oh, my star-" His voice trembled as he hit the high note, near the edge of his range. "- it was all far too late."
His fingers kept going, playing the melody one last time, and he'd essentially just outed himself in front of a handful of strangers, but Kris couldn't quite bring himself to care. In as little as half a year, he was going to have to watch while Adam got married-
No, it was worse than that. He was going to need to give a speech about how amazing Nick and Adam's love was; how happy Adam was to have Nick in his life. He wouldn't be allowed to get drunk and watch the ceremony from the back row; he wouldn't be able to cut out of the reception early. Adam deserved better from him than anything like that.
His hands shook as they stilled over the keys and when Lenny touched his shoulder, he jerked away, fingers crashing down with a discordant mess of noise. Kris slid his fingers off the piano, pressed them down against the bench, hard enough to make them ache just a little.
"It's like that, is it?" Lenny asked and there was no condemnation in his voice, only a quiet understanding. "When it comes to Kris Allen, everyone knows there's no one he's closer to than Adam Lambert. But it's still not close enough."
"It doesn't matter," Kris said, and he must have put everything he had into the song, because there was no strength in his voice. He felt... hollowed out, like someone had taken a watermelon baller to his insides and scooped them clean. After he and Katy had had their last fight as a married couple, he'd gone over to Adam's and they'd emptied two bottles of wine and Kris had wanted to kiss him so much. But he'd already been with Nick for almost a year and Kris-
He hadn't wanted to taint their first kiss together with infidelity. He'd always figured that, eventually, Nick and Adam would fall apart. And Kris would be there for Adam, like Adam had always been there for him. They would fit together that way, just like they had in every other way.
"What I feel-" Kris said, shaking his head slightly. "Whatever I might feel, it doesn't matter."
"It always matters," Lenny said, and he slid his hand over Kris's - Kris frowned a little, because Lenny's hand seemed cooler than made sense for the room. "If you could - if you could make a wish, change things... what would you need to do?"
Kris laughed, low and harsh, and he didn't care enough not to talk, even if Lenny planned on walking out to announce to the press that Kris was in love with Adam. "I don't know - turn back time, maybe? Go back before... before any of it. Before I knew Adam. Before I married Katy, because the whole world knows how badly I screwed that one up. Start over."
"And if I told you that you could?" Lenny asked and the way he said it grabbed Kris's attention. When he turned his head to look at Lenny, he was struck by the man's eyes, gray and watery - colorless. Had they been like that before? "There would be a cost, of course, but these things are possible."
"What's the going rate for a second chance these days?" Kris asked flippantly, but there was a strange knot in the pit of his stomach.
"You won't be able to tell anyone," Lenny said. Kris tilted his head, glanced around - the bartender wasn't moving, her hand caught in the act of polishing a glass clean. Kris licked his lips nervously and twisted around to look at the couple in the corner - they, too, seemed frozen in a moment. Lenny was still talking. "That sounds easy, but it isn't. A lie like that is hard to keep."
"Not- not that I'm believing you, but what would happen if I did?" Kris asked, not able to take his eyes away from the couple - twisted up into each other, mouths open, but not moving at all. "If I told someone."
"The magic ends; you lose the guy," Lenny said. "Standard procedure."
"Standard," Kris repeated, his voice unsteady as he turned around on the bench to face Lenny, pulling his hand out from under Lenny's cold one. "And... and that's it? That's the only price. There has to be more to it than that."
"This is a once-in-your-lifetime offer," Lenny said, and he held out his hands, both palms up. "No one gets two second chances."
Kris glanced down at Lenny's hands, trying to keep his breathing even. "Why me? Why are you offering this to me?"
"We repay our debts," Lenny said and he sounded, of all things, amused.
"I didn't-"
"No one said that it was a debt to you that we're repaying," Lenny said - then he looked away, toward a corner that didn't seem to hold anything special. "Time's growing short, Kristopher. The moon never stops moving."
Maybe he was dreaming. Or trapped in some odd form of performance theater and any second a camera crew would burst out from behind something. Or maybe-
Kris licked his lips, his hands settling into Lenny's, who wrapped his fingers around Kris's wrists. "A formal acceptance is required," Lenny said. His eyes seemed brighter now, as if a light was shining off of them. "Please repeat after me: I, Kristopher Neil Allen, wish time to be spun backwards for the sake of-" Lenny paused for a moment, and his stare felt like it went far too deep. "- let's call it 'true love', shall we?"
Kris shivered at the slight edge to Lenny's voice, but he'd already started speaking. "I, Kristopher Neil Allen, wish time to be spun backwards-" Lenny's fingers tightened, digging into the tendons of Kris's wrists. "-for the sake of- of true love."
"I accept the consequences and bind myself to silence," Lenny said. "Knowing that my wish may be nullified if I speak of it to a single soul." As Kris repeated the words, he could hear them echoing in the room, as if it were bigger and had far better acoustics than he remembered. "I bind my promise into my blood, sealed to myself and the universe."
"-and the universe," Kris finished. As soon as he was done, Lenny smiled - a very sharp smile - and he tugged on Kris's wrists, yanking him forward. Lenny's cold lips were on his and a pain like dozens of pinpricks filled his mouth and then-
-he overbalanced, his hands slipping. He only barely kept himself from hitting his chin against the piano bench and everything around him seemed dark. He blinked and there was no one in front of him, but his mouth was wet. He reached up and touched it, his fingers coming away red with blood. He pushed himself up on the bench and looked over at the bartender - but she was gone and the bar had been cleaned up, and the tables had their chairs resting upside down on them.
The room was empty, the lights out, and he was completely alone. Kris pushed himself away from the piano and went to the door, relieved that it was only locked on the outside.
Kris got back up to his hotel room in something of a daze, stumbling into the bathroom and flicking on the light. He wiped the blood away from his mouth and... and he was clean underneath, no injuries that he could see. He dampened a washcloth and carefully cleaned his mouth off. When he went back out to the main room, he noticed that he'd left his phone on the bed.
There was one missed call on his personal line - from Adam - so he went through to voicemail.
“Are you-” There was a slow, deep breath from Adam, the kind he took when he was upset and trying to center himself. “Kris, honey, I get the feeling that you weren't telling me everything before. If something's bothering you, I want to help. Call me back, okay? I don't care what time it is. There's nothing more important than- just call me.”
The cheerful automated voice informed him Adam's message had been left five hours ago. Which pretty much had to be impossible but- when Kris looked over at the hotel alarm clock, it confirmed the time. He'd gone downstairs around eleven and it was now edging past four in the morning. Kris flopped down on the bed, trying to figure out how he'd lost five hours.
It was probably too late to call Adam without waking him up, so Kris set his alarm for nine and crawled into the bed, taking off his shoes but not bothering to change out of anything else. He'd expected to toss and turn for a while, but his eyes drifted shut before he had time to worry about Adam's phone call or the freaky-weird encounter he'd had downstairs.
It wasn't an alarm that woke him up the next morning, though, but an unwelcome beam of sunlight attempting to bore directly into his brain. “Oh, fuck me,” Kris said, covering his eyes with his hand.
“What have they been teaching you at college, son?”
Kris froze, because- because that was...
He slowly uncovered his eyes, and tried not to burst into tears. “Papa?” he asked, husky and low, and that couldn't be real. Except there his dad was, standing right in front of him, clear as day.
“What's wrong, buddy?” His dad asked, pushing Kris's feet back and sitting next to him on the- on his parents' couch. He was sitting on his parents' couch and his dad was here. “You haven't called me that in- oh, at least eight or nine years. Was your fight with Katy that bad?”
Kris pinched his own arm, as hard as he could, and it hurt like a son of a bitch, but his dad was still there. Still there and giving him a look like he figured that Kris was crazy.
Which maybe he was, if he was seeing dead people.
“Not a dream,” he whispered, and then he stopped himself. The magic ends. He launched himself at his dad, buried his face in his dad's neck, breathed in. How had he forgotten that his dad always smelled a little bit like sandalwood? “Dad, I-” Nothing that he wanted to say would make any sense, though, so he cut himself off.
“She'll forgive you,” his dad said, holding him tightly. “Whatever happened, Katy loves you.”
He remembered this morning, the first time this morning had happened. In retrospect, it had been a stupid fight, the kind of thing that only mattered when the people involved were already exhausted and getting on each other's nerves. After he'd gotten back from spending the night at his parents', he and Katy had made up pretty easily.
It had been while they were making up that day that he'd come up with his idea about how to propose to her and he'd started working out the details, figuring out the song and the notes and everything. So, when he thought about it, this really was the perfect day to start over.
“I'm not sure it matters,” Kris said, softly, because he had to begin somewhere. Because- if this was real and it was pretty fucking hard to deny the evidence right in front of him, then making up with Katy was the last thing that he wanted to do. “I don't think- I don't think that me and Katy are going to make it.”
“What do you mean, baby?” his mom asked, and he looked up to see her hovering in the doorway. She looked good, bone-deep content in a way that he couldn't remember her looking in the last three years. “How can any fight be that bad?”
Kris held out his hand and she came over to take it, sitting down on his other side on the couch. “It's not Katy, mama. It's me.”
And she cradled his hand in both of hers and waited for him to go on. He glanced back over at his dad, tightened the arm he had wrapped around his dad's shoulders.
“I think... I think I might be gay,” he told them and he wasn't even sure, when he was saying the words, if they were true. But they were true enough, because his stomach still tightened and his chest ached when he thought of Adam getting married to someone else. “So, it wouldn't really make much sense to get back together with Katy.”
His mom's hands tightened around his and, for a second, it looked like she was going to cry - then she was pulling him against her and he could feel his dad hugging the both of them, and she was crying, whispering, “oh, oh my baby boy,” softly in his ear.
It was kinda uncomfortable, but in a way that he hadn't been able to be uncomfortable in years, so he soaked it in, clinging to them even when they finally started to pull away.
Afterwards, he went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror - trying to take in the changes. Fuck, he barely even remembered looking this young. No carefully cultivated stubble, because he hadn't been trying to impress anyone yet. No sideburns, not really. His face was fatter - baby fat, maybe. No eyeliner or lip gloss, of course. Baggy pants and a shirt that was a size bigger than he tended to wear these days, both of them styles that he probably wouldn't ever wear out in public any more. And the zodiac pendant that Adam had given him five years ago was gone from around his neck.
When Paula had called him 'boyish' all those years ago, he hadn't really gotten it. He'd figured that he was all grown up and he'd been frustrated that she hadn't realized that. Now, though, it was easy to see why she'd said it. He was boyish; youthful and unfinished.
After he was done with the bathroom, he went to his bag and dug out his journal, reading through the most recent pages, trying to make sure that he knew when he was.
He'd been right, pretty much, and though there were some early notes about how to surprise Katy with a proposal in the journal, she wouldn't have had a clue yet. After he re-familiarized himself with 'now', he pulled out a fresh notebook and started filling it up - the dates that he would need to remember in order to do things right, what Adam had told him in late night talks and how long he would need to wait until he should make a move. From what Adam had said, Kris figured his best chance was right after Songs From the Year You Were Born.
No one had ever read his journals in the past, so he would just have to trust that no one would try to do it this time around either. Still, he tried to be oblique enough that it would only make sense to him.
Interacting with his parents was surreal, but wonderful for all that. His mom made a pie and he thanked her with a kiss on the cheek. His dad joked about her needing to make a second pie for the rest of them, because Kris was a 'growing boy' and would eat an entire one by himself. Old traditions that he hadn't experienced in years.
Kris's phone rang and - it was going to be Charles, he remembered. The first time around, he'd whined to Charles about what had happened with Katy and Charles had told him to suck it up and apologize like a man. This time, he didn't even mention the fight with Katy, just casually talked to Charles for a few minutes before letting him go.
It was a strange, shocky moment when he realized that he couldn't call Adam. That if he called Adam, he'd be a random voice on the phone, nobody important. He almost- part of Kris thought that the best plan was to abandon Arkansas now, head to L.A., find Adam before any of the Idol stuff started. Except, of course, that it was the stupidest plan ever. Adam was still in love with someone else. Adam didn't know that his relationship with Brad was going to be over soon; it would be a complete shock to him when it did end.
It was going to be just about a year until he got to meet Adam for the first time.
Even after so many years of being friends, they'd always managed to at least talk on the phone every few days, if they couldn't see each other. And the longest they'd gone without so much as texting had been three days and that had been a one-time thing. Katy used to tease him about it, back when they were still happily married and she thought that his friendship with Adam was adorable. "You and Adam," she would say, "-you're like clingy teenage girls making BFF bracelets and having slumber parties every night."
By the time the word 'divorce' was starting to become a real possibility, she hadn't been teasing anymore. "Fine, go talk to Adam about it-" and, in the worst of the fights, she'd been crying. "-you tell him everything anyway. More than you ever tell me!"
This time around, at least that was something both of them would be able to avoid.
Kris soon realized that burying himself in the preparation for Idol was the only way that he could take his mind off the calendar. He dropped out of college - which his parents had a hard time understanding, though they supported his choices the way they always had, and he was seeing them more often than he had the first time he'd lived this year - and he got a job at a small record store in Jacksonville. Mostly, he practiced. The first time he tried singing one of his own songs, he horrified himself by having his voice crack during his warm-ups - he'd strengthened his voice so much in the years after Idol, had gotten real training in how to use it, and he'd forgotten that these vocal cords hadn't mastered those notes yet. So, that's mostly what he worked on, retraining his voice.
His mouth pulled to the side again when he hit the big notes, so he had to concentrate on fixing that. His fingers were a little clumsy on the piano, though they were still sure and practiced on the guitar, and, overall, it wasn't as hard as he'd feared to get his muscles to learn what he knew they were capable of doing.
He also came out, in a quiet and slow way. Katy was the first person he told, outside of his parents. Three days after the fight, he went to her and they'd gone out to sit under an old oak tree, branches heavy with red and orange leaves.
She listened to his confession with a lowered head and, when he was done, she threw herself at him and whispered "Thank you for trusting me," with her arm wrapped around his neck. She took his hand and told him, very quietly, that she'd suspected it a little.
I didn't, Kris couldn't tell her. The first time he'd kissed a guy had been four days after his first big fight with Katy over not having kids yet. He'd had to go to London and Jake had been there, young and out, a guitarist with another singer's band. They'd kissed just once because, right after, Kris had looked at him and noticed him - tall, dark hair, light blue eyes surrounded by black eyeliner. Kris could remember - he remembered touching Jake's cheek and thinking that it wasn't quite right and that was when everything had clicked for him.
That was when he'd realized he was in love with Adam.
Here and now, though, he could honestly tell Katy that there wasn't any particular guy in his life and since it was the truth, there was nothing in his face to betray him.
Daniel told him that he was crazy, at least a dozen times over - asking that if he was trying to do music seriously anyway, why not go to Nashville and try to get a record deal. Why stick around in Jacksonville if he'd really made his mind up? And Kris couldn't explain, though he did the best he could, saying that he needed to be better than he was to have a chance.
"You've changed so much," Daniel told him, watching as Kris did his morning stretches. "I mean, you've always taken care of yourself but... you used to be relaxed about it. Now, it's like someone's holding a gun to your head every day, the way you drive yourself. Slow down a little, Kristopher."
"I don't think I'm that different," Kris muttered, but Daniel was right - nine years made a big difference, especially since he'd spent eight of those years in an industry where slowing down meant being forgotten. And he couldn't take any chances.
"You haven't gone to church since you came out," Daniel said, quietly. Kris tried to stop himself from flinching. "It's not- no one hates you for being gay."
"Plenty of people would hate me, Daniel," Kris said. "Last time I checked, gay marriage was still illegal in Arkansas."
He shrugged away from Daniel's hand on his shoulder, because if there was one thing that he couldn't afford, it was letting his guard down. All he had to do was say the wrong thing where people could hear and- and he'd need to start thinking up a speech for Adam's wedding. It was worse because sometimes... sometimes, he almost thought it would be worth it if he could just hear Adam's voice, just have Adam say his name again in that fond, familiar tone. Four months in, he was missing Adam so much he could barely breathe.
He'd taken to writing notes to Adam in his journal, though he only addressed them to 'A' as something of a precaution. They weren't anything dangerous and he didn't write down anything too weird - he just wrote things like played Crazy today; thought of you or I miss your laugh or simply still love you.
Katy would drop by sometimes, either at his place or when he was working, and ask him how 'the whole gay thing' was going, if he'd found someone yet.
"-because I worry about you," she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. It immediately fell forward again, rendering the entire gesture pointless. "I mean, I've started to date again - not seriously - but I am trying to see people. I know... I looked up some stuff online and there are a couple of clubs in Little Rock that you could-"
"I'm fine, Katy," Kris said - and she was earnest and young and so very beautiful. He'd been so in love with this Katy, who'd always taken care of him and looked out for him and believed in him more than anyone did until-
"Are you, though?" she asked and he kissed her on the forehead and wrapped his arms around her.
"I will be," he promised.
It was silly, when he went back and thought about it, but - even though he'd already changed so much - he'd expected things to go the way he remembered when it came to the Idol auditions. He went with Daniel and Cale, again, though he had to be the one to suggest it this time. Kris went through the first couple of rounds, and then got cut.
"Honestly, I don't think you need us," the producer said, and Kris nodded and took that in, thanking her.
Daniel wasn't willing to go to the next audition with him - "We got cut once, man, I don't think our chances will improve just because it's a different city." - so Kris ended up going with just Cale, who made it further than he had last time, and Kris was trying to play just enough under what he was capable of, ducking his head down and blushing when they complimented his voice. He'd never be the actor that Adam was, but he wasn't as incapable as he'd once been, either.
When he got through to the judges' round, he called his family to let them know, and his mom insisted on coming up to support him. She brought his dad and Daniel with her. And maybe that was useful because...
They got there the day before his audition in front of the judges, so he was able to talk to them about a lot of stuff, but there was one thing that was particularly important.
"Even if I don't make it through, I'm going to move to L.A.," Kris said, holding his mom's hand gently. He looked around at them and... yeah, he was glad that he was getting the chance to tell them this now.
"Why?" his mom asked and he winced on the inside, because there was an edge of hurt in her voice.
"It's where I need to be," Kris said. "I can't explain why, but I have to be there."
"Is God calling you to California?" his dad asked. "Are you needed there?"
Kris closed his eyes for a moment, a million memories tugging at him - Allison pouting and saying that she couldn't think of anything for Michael Jackson week if Anoop was going to snag the best song; Michael asking Kris, deeply sincere, how it was that Adam could be so nice and still be 'what he was'; Matt grinning at him after White Chocolate had impressed the judges and telling Kris that they were going to go all the way, the two of them; Adam saying bitterly, "I know that to some of them, I'm just a fag-" and he'd flinched when Kris had touched his shoulder; last night talks and confessions; the tour, bright and lovely; the night Adam had said, thoughtfully, "But you are my best friend. Didn't you know that?" - moments that might or might not ever happen this time around, but definitely couldn't happen if he stayed in Arkansas.
"Yeah," he said, quietly. "I'm needed."
So, the next day, he met Ryan Seacrest again for the first time.
"You're from Jacksonville, Arkansas?" Ryan asked him and Kris had to blink before he agreed, biting back the impulse to correct it to 'Conway'. "How's that working out for you?"
"Well, not as good as it could, I suppose," Kris said, his gaze flicking to the camera for a second before he focused back on Ryan. "Considering that I'm here and all." And Ryan laughed, surprised by him, so Kris shot a teasing smile his way. "It's a great town, just... maybe not the best place for aspiring musicians."
"I can understand that," Ryan said. "Are you ready for what the judges will think?"
"I think so," Kris said. "I mean, I'm hoping they'll like it."
"Let's both hope so," Ryan said, clapping Kris on the back. "Good luck in there."
Simon. Paula. Randy. Kara. It was strange seeing them again, too. He'd tried working with Kara a couple of times after the show, but they'd never really clicked as co-writers. He'd run across the others at various events, of course, but Paula was the only one that he'd spent much time talking to, after everything with Idol had ended for both of them. They looked younger, too, especially Simon.
"Now, are you the best singer out there?" Kara asked him.
"Probably not," Kris said, and he grinned at her. "I might be the best one auditioning this year. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to find out."
"Kris, what are you going to sing?" Simon asked and - Simon was leaning forward slightly. Kris was doing "Song for You", since he hadn't seen much point in changing something that had worked last time, but he knew that he probably wasn't singing exactly the way he had before - eight more years of doing his own thing had left its mark on his singing.
"That was actually rather delightful," Simon said when Kris was done, and he was smiling. With everything that had happened so far, this just might be the strangest thing. "You know, there's definitely something about you. Whether it's... an inner confidence or even a certain quiet star power - you have it."
"I agree with Simon completely," Kara said, swiveling in her chair a little. "You stand on that platform like you know you belong on a stage. And you've got the talent to back it up."
"Wow, thank you," Kris said, trying to hide his surprise as best he could.
"Gotta agree with Simon," Randy said. "You've got the skills."
Paula, though, was staring at him thoughtfully and the customary warmth about her was completely gone. "There's something- something wrong with you. Something in the way you... breathe." Kris only barely managed to keep from flinching.
"Are we going to get an elaboration on that?" Kara asked, sounding a little irritated. Paula just shrugged, not looking away from Kris. Kara glanced over at the other two, then smiled at Kris. "Well, that's three out of four, so it looks like you're going to Hollywood."
"Thank you," Kris said, and he was maybe a little too enthusiastic, but- it wouldn't be long now. His hand trembled when he picked up his ticket.
This time, when he came out from behind the curtain, he was surprised to find himself wrapped up in Cale's arms before anyone else reached him, Daniel crashing into the both of them a moment later. His parents were next and everyone was so excited and it was great to get caught up in it.
"So, man, how are you feeling right now?" Ryan asked him and Kris clasped his arm - maybe too familiar for their relationship in this universe, but... fuck it, they'd gotten close the last couple of years, and it was good to see him now that Kris wasn't worrying about his audition.
"Feeling fantastic," Kris said. "Looking forward to the bright lights."
"And I'm looking forward to seeing you there," Ryan said and he wasn't putting on that fake smile of his anymore. He really meant it. "I think you're going to do well. You've got confidence and you've got talent."
"Thanks," Kris said, and he kinda wanted to laugh. Had he really come across as so much less self-confident last time? "See you during Hollywood week."
"Definitely," Ryan said.
It was both better and worse, now that he'd gotten through that round. Because he knew for certain that he was going to meet Adam again, now, but that only made the wait that much more painful.
Which is probably how he ended up jerking off Cale in the back of the guy's car.
It wasn't the sort of thing that he'd have ever done when he was really twenty-three, for any number of reasons, but sex wasn't as scary or overwhelming these days. Yeah, ideally, he wanted commitment and love and everything that came along with that, but mixing a little sex into a friendship wasn't going to kill him.
"I'm not gay," Cale said, after he'd returned the favor. "I love- well, I really like my girl. We're just... going through a rough time right now and she's not- fuck. I wasn't using you either, though. You know how much I love you, man."
"Don't worry about it," Kris said, patting Cale's arm - leaving sticky smears of come on it. "You can still be straight. What's that phrase? Straight but not narrow. You can be that. Whatever. You can even pretend that you got drunk from the half a beer that you had. Lightweight."
"I hate you," Cale said, dropping his head back with a bounce. "With all my heart. Are you really going to stay in L.A., even if you don't make the cut?"
"Is that what this is about?" Kris asked. "You gonna miss me?"
"No," Cale scoffed. "Maybe. I don't know. I guess."
"If I get a record deal, I was thinking of asking you to be in my band," Kris said. "Maybe even if I don't but, in that case, you'd have to be willing to live with me in poverty. In a non-gay way."
Cale didn't say anything right away, but when Kris turned his head to look at him, a wide smile was spreading across his face.
"Yeah," Cale breathed. "I'd like that a lot."
When Kris went to Hollywood for that first week, though, he went alone. And when he got to the big room filled with the rest of the contestants, where everyone was picking up room assignments and introducing themselves around, he felt oddly light-headed. He was in the same building as Adam.
So many faces that he knew - Allison, still wearing braces. Lil, confident and loudly talking to another contestant about her family, showing off her pictures. Alex, skinny as hell.
He picked up his assignment - Matt, of course, like it was last time - and joined into the general introductions, careful not to know anyone's name. Then he saw a shock of black hair, tall figure, couldn't be anyone but Adam.
He kinda froze in place, right there in the middle of the room, just staring.
Adam was dressed down, like Kris remembered from the first time. Trying not to freak people out too much with the real him, he'd explained to Kris once. Not much make up, clothes not too fancy and all black and gray.
Fuck what he was wearing, he was the most beautiful thing that Kris had seen in a year.
Kris rocked on the balls of his feet, fighting the urge to just go over there and wrap his arms around Adam and never ever let go. And that was when Adam looked up.
Adam cocked his head to the side, and someone had been talking to him, but Adam said a couple of things without looking away from Kris, and then walked forward. This wasn't what had happened last time. Kris needed to- whatever Adam was seeing in his face, he needed to figure out how to hide it because Adam wasn't... Adam wasn't ready.
Except that he couldn't quite remember how to move and then Adam was there, right in front of him.
"Hey, there," Adam said. Kris had heard Adam's voice over the last year - having scrounged up every trace of him that existed on the internet - but it was still nothing compared to the way it felt to have Adam with him, right in front of him. Adam's gaze wandered over his face and Kris wondered how easily Adam could read it now, before they knew each other. "I always appreciate a cute boy staring at me. What's your name, baby?"
Adam was holding out his hand. Kris latched onto it, trying to keep himself from holding too tightly.
"Kris," he said and he wanted nothing more out of this moment than for Adam to say his name. "What's yours?"
"Adam Lambert," Adam said, with a cocky grin. "Your next American Idol."
Kris let out a shaky laugh, choking the sound back when Adam stroked his hand instead of releasing it. He was hard, harder than he'd ever been, and he'd missed Adam so damn much and he was screwing this up already. "Hope your voice matches your confidence," he managed to say.
"Oh, it does," Adam said. "So, Kris, got a last name?"
"Allen," he said.
"Kris Allen. That's adorable. Where are you from?" Adam asked. "Some place down south, I can tell by that sweet accent."
"Arkansas," Kris said and he'd been funny and a little bit clever the first time he and Adam had met, so why couldn't he manage that now?
"Of course," Adam said, with a wink. "So, Kris Allen from Arkansas, how many people have you met? How's the west coast treating you so far?"
But they didn't have much of a chance to talk, because it was time to get ready sing on the stage for the first time - Adam started them off, and his voice was as soaring and perfect as Kris remembered it. Soon after that, it was Kris's turn, and he stepped forward to the front of the stage.
Strange, it was almost empty in the audience - more like a soundcheck than a concert, but it was...
It was like coming home.
Kris closed his eyes and he'd sung in this theater, he knew this theater, the way the acoustics worked, exactly which seats had the best views. Adam was standing in the wings - Adam hadn't ever heard him before, not in this world. Kris nodded to himself, took a steadying breath, and sang his heart out.
"You're amazing," Adam said when he got back to the wings, his voice sweet and sincere, and Kris blushed, which he'd really thought that he'd outgrown. Adam reached out and clapped a hand around Kris's shoulder and Kris shivered and moved closer, though they had to separate a little when they sat back down in the audience.
Part Two