Possession -- Chapter 5
What happened last night?
Adam was as confused by Kris's question as by the smoldering rage in his eyes. He had no idea what Kris expected from him at this point. He had done everything Kris had asked of him, submitting to the most vile and degrading things that Danny had demanded of him, just to keep Kris from being angry with him.
What does he think I did wrong?
Adam knew that Kris had wanted to punish him for resisting his orders before, and that's why he'd let Danny hurt him -- but wasn't what he’d already done more than enough? He felt a fresh wave of nausea come over him at the painfully fresh memories of the night before, and he swallowed it back, repressing the accompanying shudder as best he could while he struggled to find the right answer to Kris's question.
Kris was obviously angry -- Still? Again? -- and Adam had no idea why. He had surrendered every last vestige of his pride and self-worth just to prove his devotion, his submission to his lover’s dominance.
What more could Kris possibly ask of him?
"Adam. Answer me."
Kris's voice was stern and commanding, and Adam’s confusion was only amplified by the contrastingly gentle touch of Kris's hand on his arm. He instinctively flinched away from it, his stomach lurching with fear that was, admittedly, mostly residual from his nightmare of the past few hours.
Mostly.
Adam stumbled back against the bathroom wall, barely daring to glance up at Kris's face through eyes carefully lowered in submission. When he finally did, however, he was surprised to see a look of shocked dismay on Kris's face, as he shook his head slowly in confusion at Adam's reaction.
"Adam... it's okay. What's the matter with you? I just wanna... wanna help you, okay?"
Adam's swallowed hard to dampen his dry mouth, fighting to steady his raw and tortured nerves. His voice barely sounded like his own when he finally ventured a soft, questioning observation. "Y-you're... you're angry..."
"Not with you!" Kris insisted. "Adam... I just want to know what happened to you... who hurt you. You didn't do anything wrong. Please... just tell me."
Kris paused, edging nearer to his skittish partner, who tensed but by this point could not possibly move any farther away. His back was already pressed against the wall. Adam drew in a soft breath as Kris touched him again, just the barest brush of his fingertips against the strip of pale, bruised skin exposed where his robe had fallen open slightly.
"What happened?" Kris repeated, his voice hushed and coaxing. "Adam... did Danny do this to you?"
Adam frowned, shaking his head slowly, at a loss to understand Kris's strange behavior. His voice was barely over a whisper, utterly disbelieving, when he incredulously replied.
"Of course."
Kris didn't say anything, but his jaw worked with anger, and Adam felt his damaged spirit quailing again under the force of his obvious rage. In the past few hellish hours, the fight had been brutally driven from him, replaced by shame and confusion and brokenness, until he no longer knew any reaction to a perceived threat but retreat - and Kris looked rather threatening at the moment. He looked like he was ready to tear into the next person who spoke a wrong word to him.
Adam desperately wanted to not be that person.
He drew in a sharp, shaky breath before launching into a rambling, nervous explanation, hoping to appease Kris's inexplicable anger.
"I…I did everything you said. I... didn't try to stop him. I let him do whatever he wanted. I... I d-didn't want to, and I wanted to come to you, but I didn't. I just... gave him what he wanted, just like you... just like you said... Please, Kris, I did what you wanted..."
"Wait… Adam, wait, what I... what I wanted?" Kris echoed in horrified disbelief, shaking his head in bewilderment.
Adam studied his expression for a long moment, taking it in and slowly processing it through the trauma and pain and exhaustion that muddled his thoughts. The pieces gradually came together in his mind, until all at once he realized with a rush of hot shame and self-directed fury what had happened.
Danny had lied to him.
Of course Danny had lied to him -- because Kris would never allow something like this to happen to him…
A dark thought filled Adam's mind, as he slowly looked up at Kris again, a sick, cold feeling settling in the pit of his stomach with a new and agonizing realization - a realization that changed everything.
Kris would never let Danny do this… never let this happen to me…
Except that... he did...
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Kris was already putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind when Adam suddenly slumped against the wall, resting his face in one hand as he let out a heavy sigh. The sinking sensation Kris felt told him that he already had the basic idea of what Adam was going to tell him.
He was going to kill Danny…
"I'm so stupid," he muttered, shaking his head. "It's just that... Danny said..."
"What did Danny say?" Kris demanded. Though he already knew the answer, he wanted to hear it from Adam's lips -- to know for sure what he was dealing with before he went down the hall and tore Danny's head from his body. "What did he tell you I said, Adam?"
Adam slowly lowered his hand, raising his face to meet Kris's fiery gaze; and there was something cold and dead and unnaturally calm in his usually sparkling, animated gaze -- something that started an unsettled sensation of vague fear, a nameless apprehensive tightening in Kris's chest. Adam's words were quiet, measured, and utterly controlled when he finally answered.
"He said... you gave him permission to do whatever he wanted. That for last night... my right to refuse him had been revoked. By you. He told me that if I tried to call out for help... if I tried to exercise my right to appeal to you... if I walked out of his room and refused to do whatever he told me to do, I might as well not ever come back to you, because you'd want nothing more to do with me. He said... it was my punishment. You’d decided I needed to be… taught a lesson. For... resisting you the night before."
"How the hell did he even know..."
"It doesn't matter, does it?"
Adam cut off Kris's sputtering, indignant words, holding his gaze with quiet resignation as he looked away, pulling his robe closed around him and crossing his arms over his body in a subconsciously defensive gesture - and it made Kris’s chest hurt, because it felt like Adam was shutting him out.
"Does it?” Adam repeated, a subtle edge to his voice. “It's done, anyway. He tied me down, and he did what he wanted to me, regardless of what I wanted. He got what he wanted. And... I thought... so did you."
"No." Kris objected emphatically, taking a step closer to Adam, his hands urgently grasping Adam's arms in a desperate attempt to get Adam to open up to him again, willing hiim to see the regret and protective anger Kris felt on his behalf. "No, Adam, Danny is a liar! I would never do something like that to you, do you understand me? I would never..." He shook his head, his voice trailing off as he struggled for control of his careening emotions. "I would never take away your right to refuse anyone -- not even me! This entire arrangement is by your choice, Adam, and that means that you always have the right to call any of this off, whenever you want -- always!"
Adam was painfully still in Kris's grasp, his head slightly turned away, his face deliberately stony and impassive. He was terribly stiff, just short of being actually resistant, under Kris's insistent but gentle hands. A convulsive swallow was visible in his throat as he closed his eyes for a moment, drawing in a deep breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely over a breath, but the words he spoke were like a blow, driving the breath from Kris's lungs and inflicting a deep, sharp ache in his chest with the agonizing, simple truth in them.
"Except last night."
Kris flinched, shaking his head slowly in desperate denial -- except that he couldn't deny this. The evidence of his own guilt was right there before his eyes, in every bruise and mark that Danny had inflicted upon Adam's willing body -- willing only because he'd thought it was what Kris wanted, thought it was the only thing that would make Kris forgive him.
Forgive him... for what? For wanting a little bit of control over who touches him? For daring to trust his own instincts more than he trusted me? And his instincts were right. Just look at him.
You did this, Kris Allen. You did this.
Kris had no words that could make right what he had done. He had no explanations or excuses. Danny might have been the one to physically hurt Adam, to lie to him about Kris’s intentions and tie him down and abuse and violate him.
But he couldn't have done any of it… if Kris hadn't let him.
Kris's hands fell away from Adam's body, and he bore the sting of it as his due when Adam visibly relaxed at the removal of his touch. Why should Adam want Kris to touch him, he wondered, after all? Why should Adam want to have anything to do with him ever again, after what he’d allowed to be done to him?
Overcome with guilt and shame and self-directed disgust, Kris had no idea what to do or say to even begin to make this right. There was no logical reason for Adam to forgive him - no words of apology that could possibly make up for the harm he’d caused. So he did the only thing that came to his mind, the only thing that he could think to do in this awful moment of devastating reality.
He fled.
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Kris didn't think about where he was heading as he rushed down the hall, blinking back angry tears from his eyes. He stalked past the refuge his own room would have provided, storming several yards further until he reached another of the rooms rented for the Idol tour.
He pounded furiously on the door, not caring that he was probably awakening other guests -- maybe even others from their group -- with the racket he was creating at this ungodly hour of the morning. He didn’t stop, even when a couple of doors along the hall opened and the sleepy, irritated occupants peered out at him indignantly.
Finally, Danny opened his door, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and an open button down shirt. Before Danny could say anything, Kris shoved past him into the room, slamming the door behind him and stalking right up into Danny’s face.
Danny’s face slowly went from sleepy, stunned confusion to dim understanding… and then, inexplicably, infuriatingly… to smug amusement.
“So. Your little whore couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
Danny’s mouth was open, poised to say more - but he didn’t get the chance. Kris’s fist made contact in the next moment, sending Danny staggering gracelessly backward before crashing to the floor.
TBC...