Possession -- Chapter 11
For a few moments, Kris just stood there, dumbstruck at the utterly unexpected sight of Adam standing outside his door. Adam’s expression was composed, resolute, though Kris could detect a faint edge of solemn apprehension in his expressive gaze. He swallowed slowly, glancing into the room for a moment before meeting Kris’s eyes again.
“Can I come in?”
Adam’s voice was soft but clear and controlled, and it drew Kris out of his stunned stupor. He shook his head slightly, drawing in a breath to respond.
Adam frowned, tilting his head quizzically. “No?”
“No,” Kris objected, shaking his head more emphatically. “I mean no, not no… yes. Yes, you can… come in. If you want to.”
Somehow Adam managed to make sense of Kris’s stammered words, nodding in acceptance and stepping past Kris into his hotel room. Kris stood there for a moment with his back turned to Adam, trying to regain his bearings and steady his thoughts. He had never expected that Adam would come to him now - at the end of the tour, when they were out of time. He hadn’t really expected him to ever come around again.
But… why now? Is this… does he just want to… to tell me goodbye?
The thought filled Kris with a sense of desperation and he struggled to keep control as he slowly turned to face Adam. He started when he saw how close Adam was still standing to him, just a couple of feet away, facing him with his head lowered slightly, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his jeans in a gesture that Kris recognized as Adam’s way of keeping himself from nervous fidgeting.
Why’s he nervous? He’s got all the power here. What’s this about?
“Adam… what…?”
“Quiet.”
Kris blinked, startled by the soft command - then nodded, silently accepting it. Adam had the right to turn this - conversation, or whatever it was going to be - in any direction he chose. Kris had taken far more than he had a right to over the past few months, and was willing to give Adam back whatever he needed in order to feel safe and in control.
“I’ve been thinking, and… I don’t want us to go off tomorrow and just… just never see each other again… and leave things the way they’ve been between us. Before I go back to LA, I need you to know how I feel.”
Kris was silent for a long moment, cautiously sitting down on the end of the bed. “O-okay.”
Adam’s voice was quiet and even as he leaned back against the edge of the dresser, each word measured and careful.
“Our relationship… what we had… went wrong the very first time you insisted that I do something I… I really didn’t want to do. I was into it at first - the power games, the - the thrill of it. But… I never wanted to be with anyone but you, Kris.” He looked up to meet Kris’s eyes, a deep sorrow in his gaze that made Kris’s chest tighten, a dull ache forming in the pit of his stomach. “We were doomed from the first time you asked me.”
Kris didn’t want to excuse himself of the responsibility he knew he bore for Adam’s suffering; yet, he remembered the conversation Adam was describing, and knew that there had been more to it than that. His voice was soft, tentative, as he quietly made his point.
“You… you could have said no.”
“I know.” Adam nodded slowly, his eyes downcast. “I could have told you I… I didn’t want that, but… but you wanted it, and… I wanted to make you happy.”
Kris felt the ache in his stomach traveling up to his throat, accompanied by a burning behind his eyes at the painful, simple honesty of Adam’s explanation. He swallowed hard, blinking back tears as he drew in a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I know it doesn’t change what happened - but I truly am.”
“I know you are.” Adam’s expression was solemn, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “But… our relationship, at this point… is so thoroughly screwed up… there’s… there’s nothing healthy about it, Kris. We could try to start over and do it right, but… I’m afraid after everything that’s happened… we might never be able to fix it.”
Kris’s heart sank with those words, though he wasn’t really surprised. He hadn’t really expected Adam to take him back. He looked away in a vain attempt to hide the tears that streaked his face, the aching thickness in his throat preventing him from responding - not that there was anything he could say at this point to make it right.
“But… I miss you.”
Kris’s closed eyes opened wide, and he slowly turned his head back to face Adam, confusion mingling with hope in his uncertain eyes.
Adam shook his head, rolling his eyes at himself with an ironic smile as he added, “I don’t know why, after… after what you did to me. After everything. But… but I miss you, Kris.”
His voice was hoarse, cracked, as he struggled to get out the words he meant more than any he’d ever spoken.
“I… I miss you too, Adam. So much…”
“Shh. I’m not finished.”
The unusually gentle tone of Adam’s voice gave Kris a new sense of hope, and he fell obediently silent, waiting for Adam to go on. Kris felt a rising sense of impatience born of anticipation, as Adam stood there for what felt like an eternity, looking at the floor in front of him, gathering his thoughts. Finally, he spoke, his words measured and soft.
“In a normal, healthy relationship… the balance of power needs to be even. Same footing for both. Neither partner needs to have… total control over the other. It’s a give and take - equal partnership.”
Kris nodded slowly, accepting the reason of those words. Adam met his eyes, a warning in his intent blue gaze as he pointed out the glaringly obvious.
“This is nothing remotely resembling a normal, healthy relationship.”
Kris swallowed hard, uncertain of where Adam was heading with this. “I know,” he whispered in simple acknowledgement.
“It… couldn’t be. Not for a while, anyway. We’ve both formed… habits… patterns… that aren’t healthy, and… if we try to just… start over and do it right, we’ll end up falling back into those patterns by default.” There was a hard glint of subtle defiance in Adam’s eyes as he slowly shook his head and declared softly, “And I will never… allow myself to fall back into that pattern again.”
Kris felt an overwhelming sense of hurt and loss at the implications of what Adam was saying. He looked down, nodding sadly. “I understand…”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Kris looked up again, frowning, puzzled.
Adam’s piercing gaze was still locked onto him, his resolve clear in his expression as much as in his quiet, unyielding tone. “If we’re going to be able to work this out - to be together again - things have to be radically different than they were before. As in - the opposite of how they were before.”
Kris’s frown gradually gave way to a wide-eyed expression of stunned understanding. His lips parted to respond, except that he had no idea what he wanted to say. The thought of what Adam was suggesting was frightening and unnerving - but it might be the only chance they had of reconciliation.
“It’s the only way I’m going to be able to feel… safe.” Adam’s tone softened, though there was no apology there. “I… don’t want to leave tomorrow and… and never see you again. But… I need to know that I’m not going to… to lose control again. And the only way I can do that is to… have all the control… for a while, anyway.”
Kris couldn’t deny that Adam deserved that much from him, if he wanted it.
He just wasn’t sure if he was capable of giving it.
“I’m not talking about… day to day, public sort of situations, like… like it was with us before.” Adam’s clarification was made without accusation. “I don’t expect you to bow and beg and submit completely at all times. That’s not what I’m talking about. When we’re… out together, or… or working… just in ordinary situations… I want the two of us to be on equal footing. But… when we’re alone together… I have to be able to know that I’m the one in control. That - I’m the one who decides… what happens…”
The slight, almost imperceptible hitch in Adam’s voice reminded Kris of his recent trauma with a pang of guilt. He felt his heart go out to Adam, remembering how his power had been stripped from him, and the hand Kris had had in that violation.
Of course he wants to know that what happens to him is in his control alone. Who could blame him?
“Maybe, eventually… I’ll be able to… to trust enough that… things can be equal between us in… every area. If you can’t deal with this, I understand. But… it’s the way it’ll have to be for us to… to be together.” He was quiet for a moment, tears in his trembling voice as he spoke in a barely audible whisper raw with aching vulnerability. “I… still love you, Kris. I… just have to know that I’ll never be placed in that kind of a position again.”
Kris was quiet for a moment, though his decision was already made. He rose from the foot of the bed, taking a cautious step toward Adam with his hands extended in front of him. He lowered his gaze as he closed the distance between them, reaching out to cautiously take Adam’s trembling hands in his.
“I trust you, Adam,” he stated firmly. “I know that you’re not going to hurt me - and I’m willing to do anything you want in order to… to be with you again.” He paused, his voice thick with emotion as he added, “I’m… honored and grateful that you would even consider it.” When Adam did not pull away from him or otherwise retreat, Kris dared to edge a little closer, looking directly up into Adam’s wary eyes. “I love you… and I need you to know that I’ll never hurt you again. So… whatever it takes for you to know that… that’s what I’m willing to do.”
Adam swallowed hard, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded with the desire awakened by Kris’s simple touch, after their prolonged separation. His lips parted, his breath quickening slightly, as he steeled himself with a visible effort, keeping his voice firm as he nodded.
“That’s… what it’s going to take.”
Kris ventured a cautious hand to rest at Adam’s waist, his expression solemn, dark eyes full of devotion. “Whatever I have to go through to prove it to you, Adam - it’ll be worth it to have you in my life again.”
The tension between them was sharp, palpable, each of them on the razor’s edge of the denial that had been enforced upon them. Kris wanted to touch more, to reach out and claim what Adam was offering - this second chance. Adam wanted to allow it, and yet did not want to surrender too easily. Both men were trembling with need, the seconds ticking by interminably as they wrestled with their lingering uncertainties.
“We’ll see if you still feel that way later on,” Adam pointed out in a breathless whisper. “Are you sure you can handle… giving up control to someone else?”
Kris’s mouth was dry, his heart racing, but he nodded, biting his lower lip. His eyes were glittering with desperate need, as he ventured a hoarse, shaky suggestion.
“Why don’t we find out?”
A faint smile formed on Adam’s lips at those words, and he hesitated only a moment before grasping Kris’s arms and spinning him around, pushing him against the wall beside the dresser with breathtaking force. Kris stared up at him through wide, startled eyes, trembling - but Adam could feel the evidence of his arousal against his thigh.
He responded to it with a firm, searching kiss, plundering Kris’s mouth, encouraged and relieved when Kris yielded to his advance. His trembling hands trailed over Kris’s chest and sides through his shirt, eager for more contact, yet not wanting to take this too quickly. He hesitated, pulling back a little, his gaze seeking as he met Kris’s eyes with a silent question in his own.
Breathless, tears glistening in his eyes, Kris shook his head slightly, raising a tentative hand to brush across Adam’s cheek.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I love you so much, Adam - and I’m so sorry.”
There was no doubting his sincerity. Adam’s heart softened toward him, relief overwhelming him with the knowledge that maybe, maybe everything was going to be all right after all. He wanted to take Kris into his arms and reassure him, tell him that everything was all right.
But he knew that he had to stick to the plan - or it could still all fall apart.
Instead, he gave Kris a taunting smirk, amusement sparkling in his eyes.
“Why don’t you quit telling me,” he suggested in a whisper, stepping back and pressing gently but firmly on Kris’s shoulder. “And show me?”
Kris frowned slightly before understanding dawned in his eyes, and he realized what Adam wanted him to do. A faint smile formed on his lips, his eyes locked onto Adam’s as he sank slowly to his knees before him. He knew that this was not always going to be easy for him - but he knew that it was going to be worth it.
He would do whatever he had to do to prove himself to Adam - and earn the love he’d offered back to him again.
FIN