Title: Never Given In Vain
Author:
idwyt_nome Pairing: Adam/Kris
Rating: PG13
Summary: Give crowns and pounds and guineas, but not your heart away.
Notes: Title is from AE Houseman's poem "When I Was One-and-Twenty".
Disclaimer: Real people, ergo no owners, I mean no harm and make no profit.
When Kris first sees one of Adam's live pre-Idol performances he cannot comprehend how such a large personality was compressed into the comparatively small box they now live in. He doesn't have the courage to ask Adam about it, though; it doesn't matter when two weeks later Adam walks in and sees him watching them -- like Kris has been (obsessively) since Allison and Megan first giggled over them in the kitchen one night.
You should look for a different example if you want to improve your stage presence.
He's too much of a coward to prove to Adam that he's wrong when Adam tells him, teasingly, that it's because Kris could never do what he does.
---
When they do movie songs Kris has to avoid Adam the entire evening. Singing is a window to your soul, some performers have told him, and he's never had any trouble believing it. He knows he did well, did amazing, and everyone else knows too but Adam knows why. He himself didn't, Kris thinks, but that won't matter to Adam who's so good at seeing what he wants and so good at getting what he wants and so good at making Kris want it too, but utterly incapable of letting Kris obey his morals. He knows why it's wrong (every time he takes a breath and smells Adam in his sheets) every time Katy calls and he smiles at Adam across the room while he's talking to her (every time he closes his eyes and sings to an audience of millions and thinks every word in the song is meant for one of the most amazing people he's ever met and it's not his wife) and every time he cannot meet the eyes of his wife because he thinks (she's his but) he doesn't want her. He knows it's wrong that he wishes he weren't married, weren't loyal (he isn't, really), weren't so certain that he's going to do it, because.
It's so right, when Adam comes up behind him and slides his hands shockingly unsubtle down Kris' shoulders and sides and hips, and Kris turns and smiles because Adam's so good at making Kris not regret.
---
Adam pulls him onto the club floor, dancing. They've escaped to the outside of the mansion, and they found a club Adam swore wouldn't care they were famous, and Adam was right, (damn) so now Kris is dancing, in public, and god he hates doing this. It's fitting yourself to another person, to your partner, and letting go and giving in and having fun, and Kris can do all of those but not at once. He turns, backs away from Adam when he's spun around. Holds up his hands, laughs, tries to flee because he hates dancing, not even the physical but everything else.
Hands slide across his hips, an unforgiving burn and Adam whispers, "I'll make it so good you'll never want to stop."
---
When Adam kissed him late at night, in front of everyone at the club and all the contestants and neither of them were drunk only stupid, Kris let him. Kris let him hold his head and lick open his mouth and Kris moaned when Adam, unsurprisingly, was a better kisser than any girl Kris has ever had. Kris let him lead him in more dances, hold him close, pull him away from the safe world and the music and the others and into a smoke-tinged darkness pulsing with heat and want and new.
But Kris wanted him take him to bed, push him down and open him up and remake him, every inch of him, and Kris is still wanting and Adam's still there.
---
Katy's screaming in his ear. She has been for minutes hours days, and it's only a phone but he can't hang up, can't bring himself to do that to her. It would be the least of his indiscretions but her eyes are a clear picture in his imagination, wide and hurt and pretty with tears, brought to his mind by the pain in her voice as she yells because she's hundreds of miles away and it's all she can do when his guilt has finally gotten too much for him to push down (while he smiles and lies and tells her he loves her but the last isn't a lie it just also isn't enough) so he started to tell her and he didn't want to stop himself.
So he lets her yell, tells her he's sorry he's hurt her, tells her he wants a divorce, he's sorry he's hurt her, he's not going to change his mind, he's sorry he's hurt her, goodbye. And he goes inside, meets Adam's eyes, unsuspecting and bright, and sits on the arm of the couch over him and presses his wedding ring into Adam's palm because Adam took his marriage and his wife from him but Kris is also the one who gave them away.