fic: from adam to kris
title: From Adam to Kris
author: moirariordan
rating: pg-13
words: ~8,500
summary: In which Adam and Kris are not Justin and Kelly. Or Wayne and Garth.
notes: Kids, this is what your brain looks like on drugs. No seriously, this is bizarre, and I apologize for this, especially to melvel, because it's your ontd_ai_gives dollar drive fic. SERIOUSLY, I'M SORRY. IDK WHAT HAPPENED. TOO MANY MARGARITAS.
ATTENTION: This story has been podficc'd (podficced? podfictioned? podded? No, that sounds alien-related) by paraka: Check it out here! It's awesome. :DD
“It’s a what?”
“It’s a movie!” Simon Fuller is not a cheery man, normally, so his grin has the unintended effect of being incredibly creepy. “Kelly Clarkson did one.”
“From Justin to Kelly?!” Adam shrieks. “Are you kidding?!”
“Is that the one where they go on Spring Break?” Kris asks. Adam turns to look at him incredulously. “What?”
“I am not going to participate in anything similar to that awkward piece of crap,” Adam declares. “No offense to Kelly, but really. Really.”
“No, no, see, this time it will be better,” Simon says, reaching into one of his desk drawers and pulling out a legal pad. “We’ve hired the woman who wrote Juno to write it, and the choreographer from High School Musical - “
“Oh dear God,” Adam groans.
“And of course, you two will play the main characters, and a few of the other contestants from your season will be cast as well.” Simon pauses, frowning at his pad. “Also, Russell Brand.”
“Russell Brand, really?” Kris asks, looking excited. Adam shoots him a glare evil enough to burn hair.
“Simon,” Adam says, going for the calm approach. “I just don’t see the point of this - neither of us are actors, really - I mean, I am, but well, Kris really, really isn’t - “
“Hey,” Kris says, “I can act.” He frowns. “Sort of.”
“No, you can’t,” Adam informs him. “He can’t, Simon. Really. He can’t even keep a secret. We tried to pull a prank on Matt the other day and within two minutes Kris told him everything.”
“He was very persuasive!” Kris argues.
“Well, that’s what acting classes are for!” Simon says cheerily. “We’ve hired some bloke from New York. Kris, you start tomorrow.”
Adam gapes. “But - “
“Now Adam, I think you’re looking at this the wrong way,” Simon says, crossing his hands on the desktop. “It’s very quick filming schedule, you’ll be finished within a month. It’ll expand your fanbase, give you both a solid platform to jump off into launching your albums. Plus, the research shows that both musicals and reality television are more popular than ever, so combining the two should be - “
“What research?” Adam asks.
“Just research,” Simon replies. “You know. The official type.” Adam stares at him, lost for words. “Just trust me, this is a good idea.”
“As reassuring as that is,” Adam says, “I think I’m gonna go with ‘hell no.’”
Simon blinks. “Well, all right,” he says casually. “Of course you can decline! It’s not like I own your contract or anything.”
Adam opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. Kris reaches over and pats his leg sympathetically.
“That’s what I thought,” says Simon.
--
“I can’t believe this!” Adam exclaims. “Can you believe this?”
Kris shrugs. “Kinda, yeah.” Adam turns to glare at him. “What, man, we just won American Idol. Did you expect artistic integrity?”
“You won American Idol,” Adam corrects. “I see no reason why I have to be a part of this.” He tilts his head. “Actually, wait, what is this musical going to even be about?”
“In the Justin and Kelly one, they fell in love,” Kris says helpfully.
Adam snorts. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen it.”
Kris nods, eyes wide. “Okay, I won’t.”
“I wonder about you sometimes.”
Kris grins, bumping shoulders with Adam playfully. “Come on, don’t be such a downer, man. It’s not so bad. Might even be fun.”
“Kristopher,” Adam says solemnly, “this is a motion picture, it will be available for the rest of our lives, in video rental stores, on Netflix, played at three in the morning on Fuse TV. Do you understand where I’m coming from, here?”
“If you’re that concerned about being immortalized being dorky, maybe you should’ve thought a little harder about trying out for a reality show,” Kris comments.
“Shut up.”
“No, no, I mean, it’s not like we were already forced into choreographed musical numbers for the tour or anything - oh wait - “
“Shut up!” Adam makes a healthy attempt to set him on fire with his eyes, but that never works. “I’m disowning you.” Kris gives him a toothy smile. “Don’t try and convince me otherwise. Dis. Owned.”
“I’m just saying, we’re used to it.”
Adam glares at him. “Shut up.”
“Well,” Kris says, “you don’t have to be rude.” Adam snorts.
--
The scripts come halfway through a hellacious studio session a few weeks later, and Adam is encouraged to take a lunch break (a.k.a., let’s not talk for a few hours before we all kill each other). Adam grabs a bagel and a few deep breaths and flips it open, and makes it about halfway through before gagging and pulling out his phone to call Kris.
“Did you get it?”
“Get what - oh, the script?”
“Yes, the script,” Adam says. “It’s called Idol Hands. Get it? Idle hands? Ha freaking ha.”
Kris snorts with laughter. “You’re kidding.”
“The story of Adam Jones and Kris Wilson, two plucky young musicians who miraculously score a record deal at the same time, only to realize that Hollywood is corrupting them and give it up for…each other? Or friendship in general? It isn’t clear.” Adam sneers at the script, sitting innocently on the table. It mocks him. “Ignoring for the moment the overwhelming irony and that they made my last name Jones, let’s focus on the fact that it’s basically Wayne’s World with musical numbers, which is just…disturbing on so many levels.”
“But - what does the title have to do with it, then?”
“I have no idea!” Adam laughs, a little hysterically. “Kris - Kris. We have a secret handshake. In the movie, I mean. Like - oh my God.”
“So?”
“Do not tell me that you have secret handshakes with your friends,” Adam says desperately.
“Okay, I won’t.”
“You are absolutely no help at all,” Adam says, and hangs up on him. He should’ve called Brad.
--
The first table reading is an unmitigated disaster. It takes management about two weeks to fucking schedule it, because Kris has non-stop studio time booked and Ryder gets sick so Megan has to keep backing out, and then Adam “loses his phone,” and has to be tracked down manually by a pissed-off producer’s assistant.
Also, none of them can make it through one scene without collapsing into giggles, particularly Allison, who plays a wise barista who pops in periodically to hand out life advice to the other characters.
“Kris, I know musicians, and then I know musicians, and you are a musician. It’s in your heart, kid - I’m sorry - “ Allison drops the script, snorting like a racehorse. “I just - snort -‘it’s in your heart, kid!’ Holy crap.” Cue more laughing.
“I’m not sure that makes sense,” Kris says, frowning at the script. “She calls me ‘kid?’ Is she supposed to be older than me or something?”
“No.” The director is unequivocally unamused, all the time, apparently a side effect from working with Tom Cruise so much, or anyway that’s what he told Adam when he asked. “She’s the same age.”
“But - “ Kris frowns.
“Whoa!” Anoop snaps his head up from the script abruptly, apparently having finally found his entrance. “I’m a cab driver?! No way. No way in hell.”
“In retrospect, that might be a little offensive,” the rep from the studio pipes in with.
“A little?!” Anoop squawks. Next to him, Allison snorts again, clapping her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
“We could change it to a limo driver, would that make you feel better?” The rep asks.
“Um,” Anoop says, “not really.”
“How come I’m the evil girlfriend?” Megan wonders. “Like - do I really come off as evil?”
“Only a little,” The rep informs her solemnly. “It’s mostly the tattoo.” Megan gets an expression on her face somewhere halfway between puzzled and offended.
“Why don’t we take it from the heart-to-heart scene with Adam and Kris,” the director interrupts.
Adam blinks. “Which heart-to-heart? We have one like every ten pages.”
“The big one.” The director waves his hand impatiently. “You know, where you make up after your fight and realize your epic friendship is more important than the evil whims of the record industry.”
“He could not have phrased that better,” whispers Allison.
Adam sighs and flips through to the right page.
“From ‘Hey, man,’” the director…directs.
“Hey, man,” Adam reads obediently.
“Hey,” Kris says awkwardly, the acting classes obviously a stunning success, not, “so…great party, huh?”
“Yeah, if you like that sorta thing.”
“Well…grabs a beer.”
Allison lets out another bark/laugh and Adam prays for patience. “Kris, honey, don’t read the stuff in italics, that’s blocking.”
“Oh, sorry.” Kris wrinkles his nose. “What’s blocking?”
“It’s - “ Adam looks to the director, who is playing Bedazzled on his iPhone. “I’ll explain later, just start over. Ignore the italics stuff.”
“Okay.” Kris clears his throat, looking adorably nervous, focusing intently on the script. “Well…I thought you did.”
“I thought you did,” Adam says, rolling his eyes at the dialogue.
“It’s not as fun when I’m by myself,” Kris says, and Allison snorts again, muffling her giggles in her sleeve. Anoop leans down and mumbles something in her ear, and her giggles get louder. “Without you, I mean,” Kris continues, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.
“Where’s Megan?” Adam asks, adopting the appropriately bitchy tone. “I’d have thought she’d be all over this. With her pitchfork.”
“Adam - “
“Get it? Cuz she’s evil.” Across the table, the allegedly evil individual in question bares her teeth playfully.
“We broke up.”
“Oh,” Adam says airily.
“Yeah, I realized she was only in it for the money, or whatever, and I’m just not cool with that,” Kris says awkwardly. Breaking off, he looks up at Adam. “Seriously?”
Adam snorts. “You’re not cool with it, Kristopher.”
“I sound like a Boy Scout,” Kris complains, “a really young one. With a limited vocabulary.”
“Think endearing, not stupid,” the director says. “And Adam, you think - Ryan Reynolds.”
“Excuse me?” Adam drops the script. “What does that even mean?”
“I think it means ‘act like a douchebag,’” Anoop chimes in helpfully.
“It means,” the director interrupts, glaring, “dorky, charming, snarky and with a touch of selfish brat. But just a touch!”
“Oookay,” Adam drawls, “I really tried to get all that across in my ‘oh’ earlier, did you not catch it?”
“Just keep reading. Skip ahead to ‘you really hurt me,’ Adam.”
Adam sighs, picking up the script obediently. “You really hurt me,” he reads woodenly.
“More!” the director commands. “Dorky! Charming! Touch of selfish brat!”
Adam blinks, looking slyly at Kris. “You really hurt me,” he says again, this time laying on the cheese, thinking more along the lines of General Hospital than Ryan Reynolds, dorky charming whatever. “When you ditched me for her, you betrayed our friendship, Kris, and I never ever thought you would do that, ever. We made a pact! Did you forget? Do cheap blondes give you amnesia?!” Allison, head still in her arms, starts having what sounds like a panic attack, and Megan drops her head into her hands, cackling. “We said we wouldn’t let this change us, but I guess I was the only one who meant it when we both promised to be best friends forever. I hope you’re happy.” Adam wipes a few tears away, satisfied with his performance.
Kris, deadpan as ever, replies almost instantly. “You’re right, Adam. I’m an asshole, and I got caught up in everything, but it’s different now. I’m different.” His mouth twitches slightly before his expression goes black again, and Adam silently reconsiders his opinion on the acting class. “I know I screwed up, dude, is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?”
Across the table, Anoop whispers, “is this where they make out?”
Adam shoots him a glare. “You can - “ he says, looking down at the script to check, and doing a double-take. “strip - what? He can strip?”
“Oh my God, this movie just got a million times better,” Megan exclaims.
“Nobody told me there was stripping involved,” Kris says, mildly panicked.
“Relax,” the director says. “He streaks the party. No big deal. It’s a reference to the first scene, when Adam and Kris streak the Sweet Corn Festival in their hometown together.”
“Oh yeah, cuz that sounds like a fun Friday night,” Adam says bitingly.
“They streak the Sweet Corn Festival?” Anoop says. “Where are they supposed to be from, Pleasantville?”
“Iowa, actually,” the director replies.
“You made my last name Jones and then you decided to put me in Iowa?” Adam moans. “Did you find my list of things I think are lame, because let me tell you, ‘people named Jones’ and ‘Iowa’ are both on there.”
“I would like to take this opportunity to state, for the record, that I am really not okay with showing my bare ass to the entire world,” Kris says loudly. “Like - I have some limits, okay.”
“Your ass is far from the most embarrassing thing about this entire situation,” Adam says.
“Did you just call my ass embarrassing?” Kris replies. “Um, offended.”
“Yeah, his ass is nice,” Megan says in defense. “Like, if I had to choose between Kris’s ass or Adam’s ass, I’d probably choose Kris’s. No offense, Adam.”
“Some taken!” Adam says, shooting her a betrayed look.
“Hey, when it comes to hair though, it’s all you, Adam!” she continues. “Also arms and shoulders. But ass, and mouth - Kris. Definitely Kris.”
“Agreed,” says Anoop, earning some weird looks.
“This conversation is making me uncomfortable,” Kris announces. “Can we please get back on topic? About how I’m so not getting naked on camera?”
“You don’t have to actually get naked,” the director says, rolling his eyes. “We’re not going to show any of the fun parts, anyway. Just your bare chest, a few strategically placed pieces of furniture, and voila.”
“Oh,” Kris says. “Well, I guess that’s okay.”
Megan pouts a little. “Okay, never mind, this movie is boring again.”
“I would just like to say,” Allison says, face cherry red from laughing, “that this is probably the most awesome day of my life. Ever. Thank you guys, really. Like - wow.”
Adam narrows his eyes at her. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying yourself, baby girl.”
“Can we like, make suggestions?” Kris asks. “Because we’ve yet to address why half the stuff I’m supposed to say is stupid.”
“Half?” Adam mutters.
“You can, in fact, make suggestions,” the director says. “Just send them my way and we will take them into consideration.” Code for, I will throw them in the trash can as soon as you’re gone and go back to counting my grey hairs, Adam knows. “Okay, back on track. From the top, please.”
“Of this scene?” Kris asks.
“No, of the movie,” the director says, and everyone sighs in tandem.
“Can we get some vodka?” Anoop asks. “I think that would improve our artistic vision, collectively.”
The studio rep shakes her head. “Allison is underage.”
Allison squeaks. “Sorry, guys.” Anoop pats her head.
“But,” the director chimes in, “I will buy everyone in here over the age of twenty-one a drink of their choosing at the bar later if you get through this in under two hours.”
Megan, Anoop, Kris and Adam all exchange looks, then flip hastily to the beginning of the script.
--
So, the script is phenomenally bad. This is a fact.
“I wanna hear you say it.”
Kris sighs. “Fine. This is going to be a disaster. Happy?”
“No.” Adam glares at the director, sitting at a table across the bar and saying something that apparently requires dramatic hand gestures to Megan. “I am not happy. Because we haven’t even met the choreographer yet, who I know for a fact is an idiot. And if you think the lines are bad…” Adam trails off, shuddering.
“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Kris says. “Like - it’s bad, okay, but you, me and Alli are under contract, and it’s more exposure for Megan and Anoop, which is good - “
“Isn’t Scott supposed to be in it, too?” Adam mumbles. “He’s like, the drunk friend, right?”
“Who the hell knows.” Kris frowns down into his glass, containing something that looks, smells and, if the expression on Kris’s face whenever he takes a drink is correct, tastes, like gasoline.
Adam frowns. “Are you okay?” He thinks quickly back on Kris’s behavior over the course of the day, vacillating between nervous/quiet and sullen/angry. “Like - you’ve been acting kinda weird, even for you.” He nudges Kris’s shoulder playfully.
Kris shrugs. “Katy left me,” he says casually, as if commenting on the weather.
“What?!”
Kris winces. “Would you keep it down?”
In retrospect, that was rather shrill. “Sorry. What happened? Jesus - why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Kris says, and downs the last of his drink. “Actually - I do wanna talk about it. But I’m not allowed to talk about it.” He scoffs. “And isn’t it fun.”
“I’m so sorry,” Adam says. “Like - really. Oh my God, Kris.” He makes a gesture that he hopes conveys the complicated knot of sympathy/regret/anger that he’s feeling.
Kris nods. “Thanks.”
Adam falls quiet, unsure of what to say, especially to this odd, quiet, boiling-beneath-the-surface Kris. Now that he’s paying attention, he can see the coiled tension in his rigid shoulders, the clench of his jaw, his tight grip on the bar. It’s kind of hot, actually, and he’s so going to hell but whatever, he’s said way more offensive things than that, let alone thought. “We could go somewhere else,” Adam offers, “and talk. Back to my place, maybe?” Kris stays silent. “Or,” Adam attempts, “we could get really drunk, and then go back to my place and play Wii Sports until we pass out.”
“Let’s go with option B,” Kris says gratefully, and motions to the bartender for a refill. Adam smiles in satisfaction.
--
So, Adam decides the next morning, no more pity parties for Kris.
Somehow, Kris had ended up in Adam’s bed, which is not that unusual of a situation after a night of hard drinking and Wii-playing, but what is unusual is that he’s naked. Adam’s first response upon waking up and discovering this fact is we had sex?! Accompanied by an embarrassing amount of giddy celebration and fist-pumping in his head, before realizing, oh, he still has jeans on. So no sex. Dammit.
Kris’s response to Adam’s very logical inquiry about his nakedness, however, is a loud groan and some muffled curse words, which is not at all helpful. Further questioning however proves to be futile as Kris is apparently, a nasty bitch when he’s hungover, and Adam, being a fucking saint, provides him with water and aspirin and lets him sleep for three more hours. He even makes coffee.
When finally coherent, Kris apparently sees nothing unusual at all about the fact that he had, at some point, taken off his clothes and climbed into bed with his gay friend, providing Adam with only a shrug and a “sorry,” before burying his face in a mug of coffee.
“That’s it?” Adam says. “‘Sorry’ is all I get?”
“I’m really sorry?” Kris tries for a sheepish smile, but it comes off more like a grimace.
“You are impossible,” Adam declares, and leaves to go get donuts. Fuck dieting, it’s that kind of morning.
Adam is expecting some level of awkwardness to this situation - like, Jesus, how could it not be? - but Kris apparently is some kind of awkward-proof, weirdness-dodging ninja, because it isn’t. Awkward, or weird. Like, at all. Which is the weirdest thing about the situation, if Adam thinks about it.
They eat donuts, and Kris gulps down an entire pot of coffee, and opens up a little about Katy, who apparently left Kris because of a) the pressures of fame, b) LA gives her hives, c) they’ve been drifting apart and she wants to pursue her own path, independent from Kris’s, and not that she doesn’t love him it’s just that she’s not ready for this level of commitment after all, or d) she’s a heinous bitch. Or perhaps some combination of all of them, it isn’t clear from Kris’s fragmented explanation.
And what really says something about Adam as a person, he thinks, is that he is resolutely more focused on the fact that Katy apparently pulled a “just kidding!” on her marriage vows rather than the fact that Kris is licking powdered sugar off his fingers while wearing Adam’s shirt. Yeah.
“It’s better that this is happening now, though, instead of like, five years from now,” Adam tells him. “And also - you don’t have to feel guilty about kissing Megan. Point.”
Kris smirks. “Katy was actually excited about that,” he says, a little oddly. “I offered to see if I could get her a part in the movie, but she said no. And she said that I should see if I liked kissing Megan, as like…an experiment or something.” Kris frowns. “Like - what, that I might suddenly fall madly in love with her and be okay with getting dumped?”
“Not a totally far out possibility,” Adam says logically. “I know this girl who was married for like, two years or something, and her husband left her out of nowhere. A week after she got served the papers, she met this bartender guy on leave from the Navy, and forgot all about her scumbag husband.” Adam blinks. “Not that you’re a scumbag. Or to imply that Katy might meet a bartending sailor.”
“That’s different, though,” Kris says. “Katy and I - we’re different.” He stops. “Or I thought we were different.”
He looks so miserable that Adam feels this incredible urge to just like - pull him in completely, and just protect him from everything, as if he’s a turtle or something and can shelter the American Idol in his big gay sparkly shell.
“I’m really sorry, Kris,” he settles for saying, instead. “Like, I know I’ve said this already, and this will probably not be the first time you’ll hear it, but I’m just - really sorry this happened to you.”
“Thank you.” Kris tilts and leans into Adam’s side, pressing his forehead to Adam’s shoulder affectionately, hands loose on the countertop. “That really does mean a lot.”
Adam kisses his head, on impulse. “You’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“I know,” Kris mumbles. And that’s that.
--
The next few months are a fast-moving blur, for the most part. Adam is recording, and so are Kris and Allison, and so all three of their lives are reduced to studio sessions, meetings, interviews, more meetings, more studio sessions, and oh yeah, more meetings. He sees Alli periodically, mostly because they have a game going to see how many times they can track each other down over the course of a day, and Kris almost never, mostly because Kris is dealing with a group of PR people who have an amazing number of fights on how to handle the divorce, the process of the divorce itself, helping Katy move all her crap back to Conway, breaking the news to two sets of parents that there will be no grandchildren in the near future, and oh yeah, being dangerously depressed. Adam’s a little worried.
The culmination is a drunken phone call at four am one morning that Adam mistakenly answers, despite his very tried-and-true policy of never answering calls after two o’clock, especially on Fridays. It’s never good news. Ever.
And it’s true, because when Kris solemnly informs Adam that he’s in a big cage (a cage of badness) Adam sighs, tells him to drink lots of water and hangs up. And then wakes up the next morning to the news that by “big cage of badness,” Kris had not in fact meant his general life situation at the moment, but actually, literally, a big cage of badness, otherwise known as jail.
“I cannot believe I called you for bail money and you hung up on me!”
“In my defense,” Adam says, “you never actually said the word ‘jail.’ Or ‘bail.’ Or ‘money.’ It was just a bunch of incoherent mumbling.”
“Whatever,” Kris huffs.
“Then you starting singing Rude Boy by Rihanna, which aside from being pretty much the funniest thing in the entire world, was not exactly a hint to the fact that you were in jail.”
Kris looks unimpressed. “I slept on a cement floor. Next to a Neo-Nazi.”
Adam snorts. “That sounds romantic, continue!”
Kris stares out the window sullenly. “I can feel how dirty my clothes are.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have punched a fucking cop, then,” Adam says. “At the danger of sounding like my mother, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking the guy was an asshole!” Kris exclaims. “And he totally was.”
Adam sighs. “Yeah, I’m sure he did something heinous to provoke you in your totally calm state at the time.”
“He called you a fag,” Kris says, and Adam jerks the wheel a little too hard, swerving sharply. “Hey, watch it!”
Adam clears his throat. “Uh - how did I come up in conversation with a traffic cop, exactly?”
Kris shrugs. “He recognized me and then brought you up. I dunno, man, I don’t remember all the details.”
Adam takes a deep breath, focusing intently on the road. “Well, I appreciate the solidarity or whatever, but maybe next time you should just let it slide.”
“Why?” Kris asks.
“Well, when choosing between defending my honor and not getting arrested, I’d rather you choose the latter.”
Kris sighs. “Fine. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Adam says.
“Well, I’m sorry for getting arrested,” Kris says. “I’m still mad you hung up on me, though.”
“You’re going to have to let that go eventually,” Adam says patronizingly.
“I think I’m gonna hold onto it until at least the end of the car ride home,” Kris shoots back. “Thanks, though.”
So, obviously, the giving Kris space and time to deal with it on his own plan isn’t working, so Adam gives it up. He starts finding excuses to stop by and visit, call, text, run into him randomly on the street, invite him places, and when he doesn’t have time, he sends Alli to. And sometimes, Cale. It’s a foolproof system that results in Kris never being alone, except for a few hours in the early morning and then late at night when he’s asleep, and even then, Adam bribed his doorman to page him if Kris leaves under suspicious circumstances, so.
“Dude,” Kris says, after about a week of this, “it’s like I’m on suicide watch or something.”
“Not too far from the truth.”
“I went to the bathroom yesterday, and Cale was waiting for me outside.” Kris pins him with a look. “I know you’re behind it.”
“How do you know that?” Adam asks innocently.
“I can feel it,” Kris says. “You know that feeling you have when someone’s staring at you? It feels like that. Times a hundred.”
“I’m just worried about you,” Adam says, trying the puppy eyes.
“That’s really creepy, man,” Kris comments. “Is there something wrong with your eyes?”
Adam pouts. “Fine, I’ll take a step back. But if you get arrested again, I am so not helping.”
“Thanks,” Kris replies, no small amount of sarcasm. “I can really feel your sincerity.”
“I will stop,” Adam says. “I swear.”
“You’re totally lying,” Kris accuses. He’s right. He totally is.
Filming starts up on Idol Hands soon after, which makes keeping an eye on Kris a whole lot easier since they are on the same set for eight to ten hours a day. Plus, they share a trailer. It’s kind of like being in the mansion again, if the mansion had been a really shitty double-wide that smells like pot.
The downside to this, however, is that filming a movie that they all hate is - well, actually that part is the downside. (Except Allison, who finds everything about it hilarious.)
They’re filming on location in some small town in Utah, which apparently looks a whole lot like Iowa, and has the added benefit of being a couple hours away from Megan’s place so she doesn’t have to be away from Ryder for too long. They spend the first week in solid rehearsal, having the lines drilled into them by a wholly unsympathetic production assistant with the patience of a saint, until Adam starts saying his monologues in his sleep, which is really disturbing and also, annoying.
The first couple of weeks are all of Megan and Kris’s scenes together, which are positively hilarious to watch, as Kris is so profoundly uncomfortable with kissing Megan that it’s almost offensive, or it would be if Megan would stop giggling long enough to actually let him do anything.
“I’m sorry,” Megan exclaims, “it’s like, he leans in, and I think, Pocket Idol! And then I start giggling.”
They eventually fix this situation by taking out most of the actual mouth-to-mouth contact in favor of cheek and forehead kisses, and one really weird scene where the director makes Kris kiss Megan’s knee, like randomly and weirdly, but, being Kris, he pulls it off.
The bulk of the scenes are ones between Adam and Kris, as the movie is primarily about them - or their alter egos, anyway. Megan has the next biggest part as the conniving girlfriend (something she eventually embraces with vigor, employing the craziest type of method acting that Adam’s ever seen by stalking around the set and referring loudly to her “evil mastermind plans” - which include everything from invading Adam and Kris’s trailer with Allison to stealing the last danish). Anoop’s part, eventually reworked into a quirky personal assistant rather than a quirky cab/limo driver, consists of him mostly popping up at odd moments at the end of scenes with a sarcastic quip or observation on events, and Allison mostly just hangs out in the background, handing out cryptic, incoherent advice and/or encouragement whenever prompted. She’s like a cross between Mr. T and an aging hippie, only with bright blue and red hair. And the story itself…pretty much only makes sense to Allison. To everyone else it’s like trying to follow the plot of a Family Guy episode - difficult and so not the point.
Working closely with Kris, though, is…Adam might say, almost worth it. The longer the process goes on (which, contrary to what Simon had assured them, will be much longer than a month. Hah) the less depressed he seems. By the end of the third week, Adam notices that he’s no longer surgically attached to his phone, checking it obsessively for news from his lawyer (read: Katy) and a couple weeks after that, he even starts making jokes about it. The divorce, Adam means. He’s taking it as a good sign.
They’re most of the way through the filming schedule when one of the big thingys breaks (Adam doesn’t know what the fuck it does okay, it’s big, it has wheels, and it probably cost more than his life is worth) so they have to delay shooting until a new one can be shipped in. They take this opportunity to schedule them all in the studio to start recording the musical tracks, interspersed with more dance rehearsals for the final few dance scenes. They do all this in Salt Lake City, which despite being in the middle of the reddest state that Adam has ever set boot heel in, is actually like, a really cool place. Huh.
The songs are bad, this is a fact. The dancing is worse, this is also a fact. But somehow, all of this becomes less important, as despite the horrifying quality of the work Adam is doing, he’s kind of having the time of his life.
It becomes tradition to go out every Saturday, to a bar near the hotel where they’re all staying, sometimes bringing Allison when she can shake her mother, but mostly not. Anoop calls it “grown up time.” Allison usually smacks him when he does this.
One particular Saturday, Megan and Anoop are intensely involved in a game of beer pong with a group of college students at one end of the bar, when Kris, apropos of absolutely nothing, makes a pass at Adam.
“Kris, honey,” Adam says, frantically trying to signal Megan with his mind to come back over and save him from this situation, right now please, “you’re drunk.”
“I’m not,” Kris protests, and leans forward, nearly falling off the barstool. “Oh wait, maybe I am.”
“Right,” Adam says. “Let’s go back to the hotel. Okay?”
“Yes!” Kris exclaims. “Let’s do that!”
“To our separate suites,” Adam says through gritted teeth, and watches as Kris’s face falls. “Come on.”
Kris sighs mournfully, holding out his hand and allowing Adam to guide him out of the bar. “You think you know best,” Kris informs him solemnly, tilting precariously to the left, “but you’re wrong.”
“Which one of us is holding onto a trashcan to keep from falling over right now?” Adam asks, and Kris wrinkles his nose, letting go of the can and nearly crashing head first into the wall. “Also, which one of us has been divorced, arrested and subsequently on the cover of every tabloid in the country in the last two months? Hint. It’s not me.”
“If you hadn’t hung up on me, I woulda been fine,” Kris grumbles. “Stupid TMZ. Stupid Perez Hilton. Pfft. Whatever.”
“Also there’s the whole ‘hitting on your best friend even though he’s male and I’m straight’ thing,” Adam says tightly, staring up at the elevator doors and willing them to open, “which we are so talking about tomorrow. I don’t even care how hungover you are.”
“Dude,” Kris says, with feeling, “you are so overdramatic.”
“No no no, do not call me overdramatic, I am perfectly dramatic enough. You are underdramatic.”
“That’s not even a word,” Kris says.
“This is not helping me become less worried about you,” Adam says pointedly.
“Adam,” Kris says, grinning drunkenly, “I’m fine. See?” He pats his chest, doing a little spin and then crashing into the closed elevator doors. “Ouch. Okay, well that hurt, but I’m still fine, okay.”
“Right,” Adam says sarcastically.
“And just because I’ve never been with a guy before doesn’t mean I don’t like you,” Kris continues, stepping forward haltingly and leaning his cheek on Adam’s shoulder. “I like you a lot. I do.”
“I like you too,” Adam says warily, counting to twenty inside his head. “We’re friends. Because you’re straight.” He blinks. “Wait, I don’t mean that that’s the only reason we’re friends. Or that we’d be something else if you weren’t straight. Which you are, so it doesn’t even matter, right?”
“Maybe,” Kris mumbles, “you should fuck me and find out.”
And if that weren’t stunning enough, the elevator doors open on Kris’s words and Adam is greeted with an elderly couple, staring them down as if Adam is the end of all morality and decency.
“Sorry,” he says, suspiciously high-pitched, dragging Kris into the elevator and shoving him into the corner. “Stay,” he says sternly. “Oh not you. Him. I mean - sorry, can you hit ‘seven’ for me?”
--
It’s stressful, okay, that’s all Adam’s saying. Kris is touchy-feely sober and when he’s drunk and apparently hot for Adam, he’s impossible. There may or may not have been some minor indecency in the hallway, and there’s a traumatized maid that Adam hopes he never has to see ever again, but for the most part Adam emerged unscathed. And un…fucked. And so did Kris. For the record.
He spends a good hour after depositing Kris in his room pacing and fretting before downing a row of mini vodka bottles from the mini-bar and passing out on the couch halfway through a Golden Girls rerun. His wakeup call the next morning consists of a frantic phone call at an incredibly indecent hour from the director’s assistant, who informs him that he has exactly one hour to get down to the restaurant in the lobby for a breakfast meeting or she will personally come upstairs and kick his ass, and Adam really believes her. It’s not a nice morning.
So Adam takes a shower, and worries about seeing Kris, and gets dressed, and worries about seeing Kris, and walks downstairs, and worries about seeing Kris, and almost chickens out because he sees Kris through the window, before forcing himself to walk inside, because he’s Adam fucking Lambert, bitches, but seriously oh my God, Kris looks incredible. Son of a bitch.
“Adam,” Kris greets, looking nonplussed and non-hungover, the little shit. “Sleep well?” Adam glares at him venomously, and he smirks.
The director shows up soon, thankfully, and orders enough food to feed an army. Then he smiles pleasantly, and Adam feels a cold shiver.
“So,” he says, “we’ve decided to make it a love story.”
Adam chokes on his tea. “Okay,” Kris says cheerily, and Adam chokes again. On nothing.
“But,” Adam sputters, “we’ve already filmed practically the whole thing?”
“I’ll tell you a secret, Adam,” the director replies, leaning in conspiratorially. “The only difference between a romance and a bromance is the kiss at the ending.” He leans back in his chair casually. “An extra week of shooting to throw some more relevant lines in, and we’re good to go. And we have a rewrite of the ending scene, of course.”
“But - “
“Great,” says Kris, kicking Adam in the shin. “Just send us the new lines.”
“Thanks for being a trooper, Kris,” the director says, and starts digging into the food with a vigor that is at best, odd, and at worst, a sign of rabies. (What is this guy on? Adam wonders.)
“I, uh - “Adam tries again, “really, really don’t know if this is a good idea, I mean - Kris is straight - “ Kris rolls his eyes. “Shut up, you are, or at least everyone thinks you are, because why wouldn’t they, since you, you know, only sleep with women - “
“One woman,” Kris says pointedly. “Which is a moot point now. As they already know.”
“Your fanbase!” Adam says frantically. “Uh - this is - bad idea. Really, really bad idea. Cuz - he’ll lose fans, and people will think I corrupted him, and - and stuff - “
“Actually,” the director says, “the research shows that gay people are in, now.”
“Gay people are in?” Adam repeats, torn between laughing and crying. He could seriously go either way at this point.
“It’s very popular,” the director says, “plus there’s the whole Kradam thing, which honestly is the only reason we’re doing this in the first place - “
“Um,” Adam says, and is ignored.
“So we wanna take it a step further. Push the limits.”
“Plus,” Kris chimes in, “everyone already thinks we’re fucking, anyway.”
“Am I - can you actually hear me talking? Or am I actually making no sound at all?” Adam asks. “This makes no sense. Comprende? None!”
“Look, Adam,” the director starts, setting down his fork, finally, “I think you’re looking at this the wrong way - “
“Oh ho no,” Adam says, “do not pull that shit with me. Don’t even.”
“I’m sure you’ll come around,” the director replies, wiping his mouth delicately. “I have to go the bathroom,” he then announces, and pushes back from the table and wanders off. Adam stares after him incredulously (no seriously, what is that guy on?) before turning his gaze on Kris.
“What the fuck was that?!”
“So it’s a love story now,” Kris says, shrugging. “Not like this movie can get any more insane than it already is.”
Adam splutters incoherently, flailing his arms around in some hope to convey his feelings on the subject.
“Dude,” Kris says, “calm down. You’re making a scene.”
“Oh, fuck this,” Adam says. “You all are crazy.”
“You’re the one waving your arms around like a lunatic!” Kris replies.
“Why am I the only one noticing the insanity, here?” Adam asks, mostly rhetorically. “Like - I really want to know. I’m stumped.”
Kris sighs. “Just take some deep breaths,” he says. “And here - have a donut.”
“I don’t want a fucking donut!”
“Fine,” Kris replies, setting it back down on the plate, “you don’t have to yell at me.”
Adam stares at him, unimpressed. “If this is a game, it’s not funny,” he says soberly.
Kris looks startled. “Game?” he says. “I’m not playing a game.”
Adam huffs. “Right.”
Kris narrows his eyes at him darkly. “You are either stupid or in denial, I can’t figure out which.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kris sighs, drops his fork, and before Adam can react, leans in and kisses him, right there in front of everyone in the restaurant.
Two primary thoughts battle for attention, one being holy fuck Kris is kissing me, and the second being holy fuck I’m kissing a guy in Utah, we’re gonna get killed, and before Adam can decide which is the more urgent, Kris pulls away.
“As of next Saturday, I’m officially divorced,” Kris says, staring intently at his coffee cup. “I’ve been trying to send you subtle signals for like a month but either I suck at it or you do, because you haven’t noticed. And yes I was drunk last night but I knew what I was doing, so.” He raises his eyebrows. “Your move.”
“I - “ Adam stammers. “Um - Mormons!”
“What?” Kris looks at him like he’s crazy. Which is not undeserved.
“I gotta go,” Adam says in reply, and bolts.
Because he’s smart. He thinks.
--
The next few weeks are all reshoots, mostly with Megan and Kris, so Adam takes the opportunity to avoid him at all costs, freak out with every fiber of his being, and call everyone he knows to ask for advice. His family all hang up on him after the first five minutes, and then start avoiding his calls. Well, Neil still answers, but only to laugh at him, loudly, which is not fucking helpful at all.
Brad pretends not to hear anything he says on the subject of Kris, which leads to Adam babbling while Brad carries on a completely different conversation, independent of Adam’s input or presence. Lane tells him that if he wants therapy from her as well she’s going to need a bigger salary, and all his other friends are equally, if not more, unhelpful.
It doesn’t help that Kris keeps sending him these texts which may be interpreted as flirting, if Adam was crazy, which he is not. So it’s really just annoying, when he gets texts that say shit like, you look hot today and are you done freaking out yet, because I’m getting impatient. Which that was one just ominous, okay, winky emoticon or not.
He gets the script for the redone final scene, which has been changed from a heartfelt reunion at a concert between two best friends, to a romantic movie-screen kiss at a Hollywood party. Oh, and Kris? Is naked.
His character! His character, Kris Wilson, not Kris Allen, is naked. Is what Adam means. The fucking streaking thing. Not that filming that Sweet Corn Festival scene hadn’t been torture enough, now Adam has to fucking kiss him, again, and he’ll be naked, again, and if Adam hasn’t mentioned this already it’s really, really unfair that Adam has seen Kris naked more times than he he’s seen some his boyfriends naked in the past few months and they’ve never once made it past first base. A crime.
Not that he wants to go past first base, because Kris is straight. This is all a divorce-induced period of hysteria, or something, and Adam will fall on the fucking sword and resist Kris’s wily temptations because he is a fucking awesome friend and that’s that. Because he’s straight.
“That gets less believable every time you say it,” is Neil’s response to that.
“Shut up,” Adam replies, and Neil laughs at him again. And then hangs up.
The morning of the final scene, Adam spends a solid hour giving himself a pep talk in the mirror. It only serves to make him more nervous, especially since Kris pops his head in and Adam nearly jumps through the window in surprise.
“Ready for today?” Kris asks, shit-eating grin spread across his face.
“You suck,” Adam says, “go away right now.”
“Do you think I should just go out there naked?” Kris asks, ignoring him. Adam squeaks pathetically. “I think it would save time.”
“I am very disappointed in your behavior,” Adam says shrilly, pushing him out of the bathroom bodily. “Go away right now!”
“Fine, fine,” Kris says, laughing and holding up his hands. “See you on set.” Adam glares; that sounded much more foreboding than it should’ve.
Then he goes back to his pep talk, his confidence in tatters. When this is over, Kris owes him a fruit basket. Or a Mustang.
The scene goes like this: Kris streaks the party, and then comes back outside, still stark “naked” (in reality: underwear. Tight underwear, with tiny Spongebobs on them. Yeah.) and has a heartfelt romantic conversation before a heartfelt romantic kiss. With Adam, who is stuffed into some odd suit thing made mostly out of leather, and this should not be as hot as it is.
It’s fairly ridiculous, and Adam has not tried to figure out the new plot of the movie any harder than he’d tried to figure out the old plot, but apparently Kris Wilson is declaring his love for Adam Jones by showing his naughty bits to a bunch of strangers, which Adam really hopes makes sense in some sort of context, because in the real life context, it’s insane.
What is also insane is that Kris has to run through the party set about a million times, because apparently they really do need that many camera angles, or maybe it just feels like a million times to Adam, who is trying to figure out a way to strangle himself without anyone noticing. It’s not promising. Regardless of the fact that Kris isn’t actually naked, just in underwear, but the - it’s not like Adam needs to see the goods to want to take them home, okay. And plus Adam’s seen Kris’s money shot before, so it’s all fucking pointless anyway.
By the time Adam himself is called to his cue, Kris is shiny with sweat from running, which really isn’t helping, and Adam forgets his lines three times so they go through the first part multiple times, Kris’s smirk growing in size with each time. Finally, an assistant pulls Adam aside and asks if he needs to take a “break,” which pisses him off, and fuck this, okay, he can do this. He once had to stop having sex, mid-blow job, to go on and perform - this? Is nothing.
He resolves to concentrate, and he finds that by staring just above Kris’s head, this starts to actually work. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for you,” Kris replies, jogging up and stopping on the cue like a pro. He also makes the cheesy line sound incredibly…not cheesy, which…figures.
“You just showed your ass to half of the record company!”
Kris grins crookedly. “Was it enough proof for you?”
Adam suddenly becomes intensely aware of the thirty-some people watching this closely. “I don’t know. Hey, that might be your new hobby now, who knows.”
“My hobbies do not include running naked through a roomful of people,” Kris says, stepping closer onto the second cue smoothly. “They do, however, include spending time with you - “
Adam’s neck starts to heat with a blush that is, unfortunately, all too real. “Shut up - “
“ - and talking to you, and being with you, and - do I need to go on?”
“No,” Adam whispers.
“Good,” Kris says.
This is the part where they’re supposed to kiss, but Adam can’t seem to make himself move. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a few people fidgeting nervously, the director holding out one meaty paw to hold them back.
“Adam,” Kris murmurs, too low for the booms to pick up, “it doesn’t have to mean anything.” He looks suddenly unsure, and Adam feels an odd pressure in his chest.
“Yes it does,” he says, and goes for broke.
Kris makes a small surprised noise as Adam grabs his face and pulls him forward the final few inches, wrapping him up in a kiss worthy of any romantic musical/reality show fusion movie ending, shitty dialogue and all. Kris hangs limply in Adam’s arms before getting with the program and kissing back, pressing up against Adam and clutching at his shoulders frantically. Adam hums in approval, contenting himself with exploring the skin of Kris’s lower back.
Dimly, he registers loud voices and thinks, what the fuck, don’t they know I’m having a life-changing moment here, before recognizing the word “CUT!” Adam tries to ignore it. “Guys. Seriously, cut!”
Adam breaks the kiss reluctantly, pushing a dazed Kris away and smirking. “Cut!” he says merrily. “So - another take, yeah?”
He hears a whoop that sounds suspiciously like Allison from somewhere, but the rest of the crowd is silent, staring at them blankly.
“What?” Adam asks. “We’re professionals, you guys.” Looking over at Kris, he winks, who smiles dazedly. “Let’s get this wrapped.”
--
Six months later, Adam gets a call from Megan.
“Straight to videoooo!” she calls. “They sent me a copy. It’s awesome. Like - epically so. I can’t even believe it exists.”
“I think I got one too,” Adam replies. “Somewhere. Maybe Kris stole it.”
“I did not,” Kris squawks indignantly, from Adam’s couch. He’s lying on his stomach and there’s something sports-related playing on the television; Adam is so not interested.
“We should have a watch party!” Megan exclaims. “We can all get together and watch you grope Kris on film.”
“Shut up,” Adam groans, “that is so tacky.”
“How many people can say they have video evidence of the beginning of their grand romance?” Megan replies. “Not many non-creepy people, anyway. You guys are like the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt of music.”
“Which one of us gets to be Angelina?” Adam asks.
“Me,” Kris calls absently. Adam snorts.
“I’ll call you with a date,” Megan promises - threatens. “Be ready.” And hangs up.
Adam grumbles, ambling over to the couch and kicking at Kris until he makes room. “We have to watch the movie.”
“What movie?” Kris asks absently.
“Our movie,” Adam says, flicking Kris’s ear. “Duh.”
“Oh,” Kris says, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“The acting classes did pay off in the end,” Adam muses. “Eventually.”
“Painful,” Kris comments.
“Oh, don’t be such a downer, Kris,” Adam cajoles, “it might be fun.”
“You suck,” Kris says, tilting his face up with a grin, and Adam leans down to take that invitation happily.
“Only when you ask nicely,” he murmurs, and seals it with a kiss, or maybe a promise.
And that’s that.
--
The end!
author: moirariordan
rating: pg-13
words: ~8,500
summary: In which Adam and Kris are not Justin and Kelly. Or Wayne and Garth.
notes: Kids, this is what your brain looks like on drugs. No seriously, this is bizarre, and I apologize for this, especially to melvel, because it's your ontd_ai_gives dollar drive fic. SERIOUSLY, I'M SORRY. IDK WHAT HAPPENED. TOO MANY MARGARITAS.
ATTENTION: This story has been podficc'd (podficced? podfictioned? podded? No, that sounds alien-related) by paraka: Check it out here! It's awesome. :DD
“It’s a what?”
“It’s a movie!” Simon Fuller is not a cheery man, normally, so his grin has the unintended effect of being incredibly creepy. “Kelly Clarkson did one.”
“From Justin to Kelly?!” Adam shrieks. “Are you kidding?!”
“Is that the one where they go on Spring Break?” Kris asks. Adam turns to look at him incredulously. “What?”
“I am not going to participate in anything similar to that awkward piece of crap,” Adam declares. “No offense to Kelly, but really. Really.”
“No, no, see, this time it will be better,” Simon says, reaching into one of his desk drawers and pulling out a legal pad. “We’ve hired the woman who wrote Juno to write it, and the choreographer from High School Musical - “
“Oh dear God,” Adam groans.
“And of course, you two will play the main characters, and a few of the other contestants from your season will be cast as well.” Simon pauses, frowning at his pad. “Also, Russell Brand.”
“Russell Brand, really?” Kris asks, looking excited. Adam shoots him a glare evil enough to burn hair.
“Simon,” Adam says, going for the calm approach. “I just don’t see the point of this - neither of us are actors, really - I mean, I am, but well, Kris really, really isn’t - “
“Hey,” Kris says, “I can act.” He frowns. “Sort of.”
“No, you can’t,” Adam informs him. “He can’t, Simon. Really. He can’t even keep a secret. We tried to pull a prank on Matt the other day and within two minutes Kris told him everything.”
“He was very persuasive!” Kris argues.
“Well, that’s what acting classes are for!” Simon says cheerily. “We’ve hired some bloke from New York. Kris, you start tomorrow.”
Adam gapes. “But - “
“Now Adam, I think you’re looking at this the wrong way,” Simon says, crossing his hands on the desktop. “It’s very quick filming schedule, you’ll be finished within a month. It’ll expand your fanbase, give you both a solid platform to jump off into launching your albums. Plus, the research shows that both musicals and reality television are more popular than ever, so combining the two should be - “
“What research?” Adam asks.
“Just research,” Simon replies. “You know. The official type.” Adam stares at him, lost for words. “Just trust me, this is a good idea.”
“As reassuring as that is,” Adam says, “I think I’m gonna go with ‘hell no.’”
Simon blinks. “Well, all right,” he says casually. “Of course you can decline! It’s not like I own your contract or anything.”
Adam opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. Kris reaches over and pats his leg sympathetically.
“That’s what I thought,” says Simon.
--
“I can’t believe this!” Adam exclaims. “Can you believe this?”
Kris shrugs. “Kinda, yeah.” Adam turns to glare at him. “What, man, we just won American Idol. Did you expect artistic integrity?”
“You won American Idol,” Adam corrects. “I see no reason why I have to be a part of this.” He tilts his head. “Actually, wait, what is this musical going to even be about?”
“In the Justin and Kelly one, they fell in love,” Kris says helpfully.
Adam snorts. “Don’t tell me you’ve seen it.”
Kris nods, eyes wide. “Okay, I won’t.”
“I wonder about you sometimes.”
Kris grins, bumping shoulders with Adam playfully. “Come on, don’t be such a downer, man. It’s not so bad. Might even be fun.”
“Kristopher,” Adam says solemnly, “this is a motion picture, it will be available for the rest of our lives, in video rental stores, on Netflix, played at three in the morning on Fuse TV. Do you understand where I’m coming from, here?”
“If you’re that concerned about being immortalized being dorky, maybe you should’ve thought a little harder about trying out for a reality show,” Kris comments.
“Shut up.”
“No, no, I mean, it’s not like we were already forced into choreographed musical numbers for the tour or anything - oh wait - “
“Shut up!” Adam makes a healthy attempt to set him on fire with his eyes, but that never works. “I’m disowning you.” Kris gives him a toothy smile. “Don’t try and convince me otherwise. Dis. Owned.”
“I’m just saying, we’re used to it.”
Adam glares at him. “Shut up.”
“Well,” Kris says, “you don’t have to be rude.” Adam snorts.
--
The scripts come halfway through a hellacious studio session a few weeks later, and Adam is encouraged to take a lunch break (a.k.a., let’s not talk for a few hours before we all kill each other). Adam grabs a bagel and a few deep breaths and flips it open, and makes it about halfway through before gagging and pulling out his phone to call Kris.
“Did you get it?”
“Get what - oh, the script?”
“Yes, the script,” Adam says. “It’s called Idol Hands. Get it? Idle hands? Ha freaking ha.”
Kris snorts with laughter. “You’re kidding.”
“The story of Adam Jones and Kris Wilson, two plucky young musicians who miraculously score a record deal at the same time, only to realize that Hollywood is corrupting them and give it up for…each other? Or friendship in general? It isn’t clear.” Adam sneers at the script, sitting innocently on the table. It mocks him. “Ignoring for the moment the overwhelming irony and that they made my last name Jones, let’s focus on the fact that it’s basically Wayne’s World with musical numbers, which is just…disturbing on so many levels.”
“But - what does the title have to do with it, then?”
“I have no idea!” Adam laughs, a little hysterically. “Kris - Kris. We have a secret handshake. In the movie, I mean. Like - oh my God.”
“So?”
“Do not tell me that you have secret handshakes with your friends,” Adam says desperately.
“Okay, I won’t.”
“You are absolutely no help at all,” Adam says, and hangs up on him. He should’ve called Brad.
--
The first table reading is an unmitigated disaster. It takes management about two weeks to fucking schedule it, because Kris has non-stop studio time booked and Ryder gets sick so Megan has to keep backing out, and then Adam “loses his phone,” and has to be tracked down manually by a pissed-off producer’s assistant.
Also, none of them can make it through one scene without collapsing into giggles, particularly Allison, who plays a wise barista who pops in periodically to hand out life advice to the other characters.
“Kris, I know musicians, and then I know musicians, and you are a musician. It’s in your heart, kid - I’m sorry - “ Allison drops the script, snorting like a racehorse. “I just - snort -‘it’s in your heart, kid!’ Holy crap.” Cue more laughing.
“I’m not sure that makes sense,” Kris says, frowning at the script. “She calls me ‘kid?’ Is she supposed to be older than me or something?”
“No.” The director is unequivocally unamused, all the time, apparently a side effect from working with Tom Cruise so much, or anyway that’s what he told Adam when he asked. “She’s the same age.”
“But - “ Kris frowns.
“Whoa!” Anoop snaps his head up from the script abruptly, apparently having finally found his entrance. “I’m a cab driver?! No way. No way in hell.”
“In retrospect, that might be a little offensive,” the rep from the studio pipes in with.
“A little?!” Anoop squawks. Next to him, Allison snorts again, clapping her hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
“We could change it to a limo driver, would that make you feel better?” The rep asks.
“Um,” Anoop says, “not really.”
“How come I’m the evil girlfriend?” Megan wonders. “Like - do I really come off as evil?”
“Only a little,” The rep informs her solemnly. “It’s mostly the tattoo.” Megan gets an expression on her face somewhere halfway between puzzled and offended.
“Why don’t we take it from the heart-to-heart scene with Adam and Kris,” the director interrupts.
Adam blinks. “Which heart-to-heart? We have one like every ten pages.”
“The big one.” The director waves his hand impatiently. “You know, where you make up after your fight and realize your epic friendship is more important than the evil whims of the record industry.”
“He could not have phrased that better,” whispers Allison.
Adam sighs and flips through to the right page.
“From ‘Hey, man,’” the director…directs.
“Hey, man,” Adam reads obediently.
“Hey,” Kris says awkwardly, the acting classes obviously a stunning success, not, “so…great party, huh?”
“Yeah, if you like that sorta thing.”
“Well…grabs a beer.”
Allison lets out another bark/laugh and Adam prays for patience. “Kris, honey, don’t read the stuff in italics, that’s blocking.”
“Oh, sorry.” Kris wrinkles his nose. “What’s blocking?”
“It’s - “ Adam looks to the director, who is playing Bedazzled on his iPhone. “I’ll explain later, just start over. Ignore the italics stuff.”
“Okay.” Kris clears his throat, looking adorably nervous, focusing intently on the script. “Well…I thought you did.”
“I thought you did,” Adam says, rolling his eyes at the dialogue.
“It’s not as fun when I’m by myself,” Kris says, and Allison snorts again, muffling her giggles in her sleeve. Anoop leans down and mumbles something in her ear, and her giggles get louder. “Without you, I mean,” Kris continues, raising his voice to be heard over the noise.
“Where’s Megan?” Adam asks, adopting the appropriately bitchy tone. “I’d have thought she’d be all over this. With her pitchfork.”
“Adam - “
“Get it? Cuz she’s evil.” Across the table, the allegedly evil individual in question bares her teeth playfully.
“We broke up.”
“Oh,” Adam says airily.
“Yeah, I realized she was only in it for the money, or whatever, and I’m just not cool with that,” Kris says awkwardly. Breaking off, he looks up at Adam. “Seriously?”
Adam snorts. “You’re not cool with it, Kristopher.”
“I sound like a Boy Scout,” Kris complains, “a really young one. With a limited vocabulary.”
“Think endearing, not stupid,” the director says. “And Adam, you think - Ryan Reynolds.”
“Excuse me?” Adam drops the script. “What does that even mean?”
“I think it means ‘act like a douchebag,’” Anoop chimes in helpfully.
“It means,” the director interrupts, glaring, “dorky, charming, snarky and with a touch of selfish brat. But just a touch!”
“Oookay,” Adam drawls, “I really tried to get all that across in my ‘oh’ earlier, did you not catch it?”
“Just keep reading. Skip ahead to ‘you really hurt me,’ Adam.”
Adam sighs, picking up the script obediently. “You really hurt me,” he reads woodenly.
“More!” the director commands. “Dorky! Charming! Touch of selfish brat!”
Adam blinks, looking slyly at Kris. “You really hurt me,” he says again, this time laying on the cheese, thinking more along the lines of General Hospital than Ryan Reynolds, dorky charming whatever. “When you ditched me for her, you betrayed our friendship, Kris, and I never ever thought you would do that, ever. We made a pact! Did you forget? Do cheap blondes give you amnesia?!” Allison, head still in her arms, starts having what sounds like a panic attack, and Megan drops her head into her hands, cackling. “We said we wouldn’t let this change us, but I guess I was the only one who meant it when we both promised to be best friends forever. I hope you’re happy.” Adam wipes a few tears away, satisfied with his performance.
Kris, deadpan as ever, replies almost instantly. “You’re right, Adam. I’m an asshole, and I got caught up in everything, but it’s different now. I’m different.” His mouth twitches slightly before his expression goes black again, and Adam silently reconsiders his opinion on the acting class. “I know I screwed up, dude, is there anything I can do to get you to forgive me?”
Across the table, Anoop whispers, “is this where they make out?”
Adam shoots him a glare. “You can - “ he says, looking down at the script to check, and doing a double-take. “strip - what? He can strip?”
“Oh my God, this movie just got a million times better,” Megan exclaims.
“Nobody told me there was stripping involved,” Kris says, mildly panicked.
“Relax,” the director says. “He streaks the party. No big deal. It’s a reference to the first scene, when Adam and Kris streak the Sweet Corn Festival in their hometown together.”
“Oh yeah, cuz that sounds like a fun Friday night,” Adam says bitingly.
“They streak the Sweet Corn Festival?” Anoop says. “Where are they supposed to be from, Pleasantville?”
“Iowa, actually,” the director replies.
“You made my last name Jones and then you decided to put me in Iowa?” Adam moans. “Did you find my list of things I think are lame, because let me tell you, ‘people named Jones’ and ‘Iowa’ are both on there.”
“I would like to take this opportunity to state, for the record, that I am really not okay with showing my bare ass to the entire world,” Kris says loudly. “Like - I have some limits, okay.”
“Your ass is far from the most embarrassing thing about this entire situation,” Adam says.
“Did you just call my ass embarrassing?” Kris replies. “Um, offended.”
“Yeah, his ass is nice,” Megan says in defense. “Like, if I had to choose between Kris’s ass or Adam’s ass, I’d probably choose Kris’s. No offense, Adam.”
“Some taken!” Adam says, shooting her a betrayed look.
“Hey, when it comes to hair though, it’s all you, Adam!” she continues. “Also arms and shoulders. But ass, and mouth - Kris. Definitely Kris.”
“Agreed,” says Anoop, earning some weird looks.
“This conversation is making me uncomfortable,” Kris announces. “Can we please get back on topic? About how I’m so not getting naked on camera?”
“You don’t have to actually get naked,” the director says, rolling his eyes. “We’re not going to show any of the fun parts, anyway. Just your bare chest, a few strategically placed pieces of furniture, and voila.”
“Oh,” Kris says. “Well, I guess that’s okay.”
Megan pouts a little. “Okay, never mind, this movie is boring again.”
“I would just like to say,” Allison says, face cherry red from laughing, “that this is probably the most awesome day of my life. Ever. Thank you guys, really. Like - wow.”
Adam narrows his eyes at her. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying yourself, baby girl.”
“Can we like, make suggestions?” Kris asks. “Because we’ve yet to address why half the stuff I’m supposed to say is stupid.”
“Half?” Adam mutters.
“You can, in fact, make suggestions,” the director says. “Just send them my way and we will take them into consideration.” Code for, I will throw them in the trash can as soon as you’re gone and go back to counting my grey hairs, Adam knows. “Okay, back on track. From the top, please.”
“Of this scene?” Kris asks.
“No, of the movie,” the director says, and everyone sighs in tandem.
“Can we get some vodka?” Anoop asks. “I think that would improve our artistic vision, collectively.”
The studio rep shakes her head. “Allison is underage.”
Allison squeaks. “Sorry, guys.” Anoop pats her head.
“But,” the director chimes in, “I will buy everyone in here over the age of twenty-one a drink of their choosing at the bar later if you get through this in under two hours.”
Megan, Anoop, Kris and Adam all exchange looks, then flip hastily to the beginning of the script.
--
So, the script is phenomenally bad. This is a fact.
“I wanna hear you say it.”
Kris sighs. “Fine. This is going to be a disaster. Happy?”
“No.” Adam glares at the director, sitting at a table across the bar and saying something that apparently requires dramatic hand gestures to Megan. “I am not happy. Because we haven’t even met the choreographer yet, who I know for a fact is an idiot. And if you think the lines are bad…” Adam trails off, shuddering.
“What exactly are we supposed to do?” Kris says. “Like - it’s bad, okay, but you, me and Alli are under contract, and it’s more exposure for Megan and Anoop, which is good - “
“Isn’t Scott supposed to be in it, too?” Adam mumbles. “He’s like, the drunk friend, right?”
“Who the hell knows.” Kris frowns down into his glass, containing something that looks, smells and, if the expression on Kris’s face whenever he takes a drink is correct, tastes, like gasoline.
Adam frowns. “Are you okay?” He thinks quickly back on Kris’s behavior over the course of the day, vacillating between nervous/quiet and sullen/angry. “Like - you’ve been acting kinda weird, even for you.” He nudges Kris’s shoulder playfully.
Kris shrugs. “Katy left me,” he says casually, as if commenting on the weather.
“What?!”
Kris winces. “Would you keep it down?”
In retrospect, that was rather shrill. “Sorry. What happened? Jesus - why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Kris says, and downs the last of his drink. “Actually - I do wanna talk about it. But I’m not allowed to talk about it.” He scoffs. “And isn’t it fun.”
“I’m so sorry,” Adam says. “Like - really. Oh my God, Kris.” He makes a gesture that he hopes conveys the complicated knot of sympathy/regret/anger that he’s feeling.
Kris nods. “Thanks.”
Adam falls quiet, unsure of what to say, especially to this odd, quiet, boiling-beneath-the-surface Kris. Now that he’s paying attention, he can see the coiled tension in his rigid shoulders, the clench of his jaw, his tight grip on the bar. It’s kind of hot, actually, and he’s so going to hell but whatever, he’s said way more offensive things than that, let alone thought. “We could go somewhere else,” Adam offers, “and talk. Back to my place, maybe?” Kris stays silent. “Or,” Adam attempts, “we could get really drunk, and then go back to my place and play Wii Sports until we pass out.”
“Let’s go with option B,” Kris says gratefully, and motions to the bartender for a refill. Adam smiles in satisfaction.
--
So, Adam decides the next morning, no more pity parties for Kris.
Somehow, Kris had ended up in Adam’s bed, which is not that unusual of a situation after a night of hard drinking and Wii-playing, but what is unusual is that he’s naked. Adam’s first response upon waking up and discovering this fact is we had sex?! Accompanied by an embarrassing amount of giddy celebration and fist-pumping in his head, before realizing, oh, he still has jeans on. So no sex. Dammit.
Kris’s response to Adam’s very logical inquiry about his nakedness, however, is a loud groan and some muffled curse words, which is not at all helpful. Further questioning however proves to be futile as Kris is apparently, a nasty bitch when he’s hungover, and Adam, being a fucking saint, provides him with water and aspirin and lets him sleep for three more hours. He even makes coffee.
When finally coherent, Kris apparently sees nothing unusual at all about the fact that he had, at some point, taken off his clothes and climbed into bed with his gay friend, providing Adam with only a shrug and a “sorry,” before burying his face in a mug of coffee.
“That’s it?” Adam says. “‘Sorry’ is all I get?”
“I’m really sorry?” Kris tries for a sheepish smile, but it comes off more like a grimace.
“You are impossible,” Adam declares, and leaves to go get donuts. Fuck dieting, it’s that kind of morning.
Adam is expecting some level of awkwardness to this situation - like, Jesus, how could it not be? - but Kris apparently is some kind of awkward-proof, weirdness-dodging ninja, because it isn’t. Awkward, or weird. Like, at all. Which is the weirdest thing about the situation, if Adam thinks about it.
They eat donuts, and Kris gulps down an entire pot of coffee, and opens up a little about Katy, who apparently left Kris because of a) the pressures of fame, b) LA gives her hives, c) they’ve been drifting apart and she wants to pursue her own path, independent from Kris’s, and not that she doesn’t love him it’s just that she’s not ready for this level of commitment after all, or d) she’s a heinous bitch. Or perhaps some combination of all of them, it isn’t clear from Kris’s fragmented explanation.
And what really says something about Adam as a person, he thinks, is that he is resolutely more focused on the fact that Katy apparently pulled a “just kidding!” on her marriage vows rather than the fact that Kris is licking powdered sugar off his fingers while wearing Adam’s shirt. Yeah.
“It’s better that this is happening now, though, instead of like, five years from now,” Adam tells him. “And also - you don’t have to feel guilty about kissing Megan. Point.”
Kris smirks. “Katy was actually excited about that,” he says, a little oddly. “I offered to see if I could get her a part in the movie, but she said no. And she said that I should see if I liked kissing Megan, as like…an experiment or something.” Kris frowns. “Like - what, that I might suddenly fall madly in love with her and be okay with getting dumped?”
“Not a totally far out possibility,” Adam says logically. “I know this girl who was married for like, two years or something, and her husband left her out of nowhere. A week after she got served the papers, she met this bartender guy on leave from the Navy, and forgot all about her scumbag husband.” Adam blinks. “Not that you’re a scumbag. Or to imply that Katy might meet a bartending sailor.”
“That’s different, though,” Kris says. “Katy and I - we’re different.” He stops. “Or I thought we were different.”
He looks so miserable that Adam feels this incredible urge to just like - pull him in completely, and just protect him from everything, as if he’s a turtle or something and can shelter the American Idol in his big gay sparkly shell.
“I’m really sorry, Kris,” he settles for saying, instead. “Like, I know I’ve said this already, and this will probably not be the first time you’ll hear it, but I’m just - really sorry this happened to you.”
“Thank you.” Kris tilts and leans into Adam’s side, pressing his forehead to Adam’s shoulder affectionately, hands loose on the countertop. “That really does mean a lot.”
Adam kisses his head, on impulse. “You’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“I know,” Kris mumbles. And that’s that.
--
The next few months are a fast-moving blur, for the most part. Adam is recording, and so are Kris and Allison, and so all three of their lives are reduced to studio sessions, meetings, interviews, more meetings, more studio sessions, and oh yeah, more meetings. He sees Alli periodically, mostly because they have a game going to see how many times they can track each other down over the course of a day, and Kris almost never, mostly because Kris is dealing with a group of PR people who have an amazing number of fights on how to handle the divorce, the process of the divorce itself, helping Katy move all her crap back to Conway, breaking the news to two sets of parents that there will be no grandchildren in the near future, and oh yeah, being dangerously depressed. Adam’s a little worried.
The culmination is a drunken phone call at four am one morning that Adam mistakenly answers, despite his very tried-and-true policy of never answering calls after two o’clock, especially on Fridays. It’s never good news. Ever.
And it’s true, because when Kris solemnly informs Adam that he’s in a big cage (a cage of badness) Adam sighs, tells him to drink lots of water and hangs up. And then wakes up the next morning to the news that by “big cage of badness,” Kris had not in fact meant his general life situation at the moment, but actually, literally, a big cage of badness, otherwise known as jail.
“I cannot believe I called you for bail money and you hung up on me!”
“In my defense,” Adam says, “you never actually said the word ‘jail.’ Or ‘bail.’ Or ‘money.’ It was just a bunch of incoherent mumbling.”
“Whatever,” Kris huffs.
“Then you starting singing Rude Boy by Rihanna, which aside from being pretty much the funniest thing in the entire world, was not exactly a hint to the fact that you were in jail.”
Kris looks unimpressed. “I slept on a cement floor. Next to a Neo-Nazi.”
Adam snorts. “That sounds romantic, continue!”
Kris stares out the window sullenly. “I can feel how dirty my clothes are.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have punched a fucking cop, then,” Adam says. “At the danger of sounding like my mother, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I was thinking the guy was an asshole!” Kris exclaims. “And he totally was.”
Adam sighs. “Yeah, I’m sure he did something heinous to provoke you in your totally calm state at the time.”
“He called you a fag,” Kris says, and Adam jerks the wheel a little too hard, swerving sharply. “Hey, watch it!”
Adam clears his throat. “Uh - how did I come up in conversation with a traffic cop, exactly?”
Kris shrugs. “He recognized me and then brought you up. I dunno, man, I don’t remember all the details.”
Adam takes a deep breath, focusing intently on the road. “Well, I appreciate the solidarity or whatever, but maybe next time you should just let it slide.”
“Why?” Kris asks.
“Well, when choosing between defending my honor and not getting arrested, I’d rather you choose the latter.”
Kris sighs. “Fine. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Adam says.
“Well, I’m sorry for getting arrested,” Kris says. “I’m still mad you hung up on me, though.”
“You’re going to have to let that go eventually,” Adam says patronizingly.
“I think I’m gonna hold onto it until at least the end of the car ride home,” Kris shoots back. “Thanks, though.”
So, obviously, the giving Kris space and time to deal with it on his own plan isn’t working, so Adam gives it up. He starts finding excuses to stop by and visit, call, text, run into him randomly on the street, invite him places, and when he doesn’t have time, he sends Alli to. And sometimes, Cale. It’s a foolproof system that results in Kris never being alone, except for a few hours in the early morning and then late at night when he’s asleep, and even then, Adam bribed his doorman to page him if Kris leaves under suspicious circumstances, so.
“Dude,” Kris says, after about a week of this, “it’s like I’m on suicide watch or something.”
“Not too far from the truth.”
“I went to the bathroom yesterday, and Cale was waiting for me outside.” Kris pins him with a look. “I know you’re behind it.”
“How do you know that?” Adam asks innocently.
“I can feel it,” Kris says. “You know that feeling you have when someone’s staring at you? It feels like that. Times a hundred.”
“I’m just worried about you,” Adam says, trying the puppy eyes.
“That’s really creepy, man,” Kris comments. “Is there something wrong with your eyes?”
Adam pouts. “Fine, I’ll take a step back. But if you get arrested again, I am so not helping.”
“Thanks,” Kris replies, no small amount of sarcasm. “I can really feel your sincerity.”
“I will stop,” Adam says. “I swear.”
“You’re totally lying,” Kris accuses. He’s right. He totally is.
Filming starts up on Idol Hands soon after, which makes keeping an eye on Kris a whole lot easier since they are on the same set for eight to ten hours a day. Plus, they share a trailer. It’s kind of like being in the mansion again, if the mansion had been a really shitty double-wide that smells like pot.
The downside to this, however, is that filming a movie that they all hate is - well, actually that part is the downside. (Except Allison, who finds everything about it hilarious.)
They’re filming on location in some small town in Utah, which apparently looks a whole lot like Iowa, and has the added benefit of being a couple hours away from Megan’s place so she doesn’t have to be away from Ryder for too long. They spend the first week in solid rehearsal, having the lines drilled into them by a wholly unsympathetic production assistant with the patience of a saint, until Adam starts saying his monologues in his sleep, which is really disturbing and also, annoying.
The first couple of weeks are all of Megan and Kris’s scenes together, which are positively hilarious to watch, as Kris is so profoundly uncomfortable with kissing Megan that it’s almost offensive, or it would be if Megan would stop giggling long enough to actually let him do anything.
“I’m sorry,” Megan exclaims, “it’s like, he leans in, and I think, Pocket Idol! And then I start giggling.”
They eventually fix this situation by taking out most of the actual mouth-to-mouth contact in favor of cheek and forehead kisses, and one really weird scene where the director makes Kris kiss Megan’s knee, like randomly and weirdly, but, being Kris, he pulls it off.
The bulk of the scenes are ones between Adam and Kris, as the movie is primarily about them - or their alter egos, anyway. Megan has the next biggest part as the conniving girlfriend (something she eventually embraces with vigor, employing the craziest type of method acting that Adam’s ever seen by stalking around the set and referring loudly to her “evil mastermind plans” - which include everything from invading Adam and Kris’s trailer with Allison to stealing the last danish). Anoop’s part, eventually reworked into a quirky personal assistant rather than a quirky cab/limo driver, consists of him mostly popping up at odd moments at the end of scenes with a sarcastic quip or observation on events, and Allison mostly just hangs out in the background, handing out cryptic, incoherent advice and/or encouragement whenever prompted. She’s like a cross between Mr. T and an aging hippie, only with bright blue and red hair. And the story itself…pretty much only makes sense to Allison. To everyone else it’s like trying to follow the plot of a Family Guy episode - difficult and so not the point.
Working closely with Kris, though, is…Adam might say, almost worth it. The longer the process goes on (which, contrary to what Simon had assured them, will be much longer than a month. Hah) the less depressed he seems. By the end of the third week, Adam notices that he’s no longer surgically attached to his phone, checking it obsessively for news from his lawyer (read: Katy) and a couple weeks after that, he even starts making jokes about it. The divorce, Adam means. He’s taking it as a good sign.
They’re most of the way through the filming schedule when one of the big thingys breaks (Adam doesn’t know what the fuck it does okay, it’s big, it has wheels, and it probably cost more than his life is worth) so they have to delay shooting until a new one can be shipped in. They take this opportunity to schedule them all in the studio to start recording the musical tracks, interspersed with more dance rehearsals for the final few dance scenes. They do all this in Salt Lake City, which despite being in the middle of the reddest state that Adam has ever set boot heel in, is actually like, a really cool place. Huh.
The songs are bad, this is a fact. The dancing is worse, this is also a fact. But somehow, all of this becomes less important, as despite the horrifying quality of the work Adam is doing, he’s kind of having the time of his life.
It becomes tradition to go out every Saturday, to a bar near the hotel where they’re all staying, sometimes bringing Allison when she can shake her mother, but mostly not. Anoop calls it “grown up time.” Allison usually smacks him when he does this.
One particular Saturday, Megan and Anoop are intensely involved in a game of beer pong with a group of college students at one end of the bar, when Kris, apropos of absolutely nothing, makes a pass at Adam.
“Kris, honey,” Adam says, frantically trying to signal Megan with his mind to come back over and save him from this situation, right now please, “you’re drunk.”
“I’m not,” Kris protests, and leans forward, nearly falling off the barstool. “Oh wait, maybe I am.”
“Right,” Adam says. “Let’s go back to the hotel. Okay?”
“Yes!” Kris exclaims. “Let’s do that!”
“To our separate suites,” Adam says through gritted teeth, and watches as Kris’s face falls. “Come on.”
Kris sighs mournfully, holding out his hand and allowing Adam to guide him out of the bar. “You think you know best,” Kris informs him solemnly, tilting precariously to the left, “but you’re wrong.”
“Which one of us is holding onto a trashcan to keep from falling over right now?” Adam asks, and Kris wrinkles his nose, letting go of the can and nearly crashing head first into the wall. “Also, which one of us has been divorced, arrested and subsequently on the cover of every tabloid in the country in the last two months? Hint. It’s not me.”
“If you hadn’t hung up on me, I woulda been fine,” Kris grumbles. “Stupid TMZ. Stupid Perez Hilton. Pfft. Whatever.”
“Also there’s the whole ‘hitting on your best friend even though he’s male and I’m straight’ thing,” Adam says tightly, staring up at the elevator doors and willing them to open, “which we are so talking about tomorrow. I don’t even care how hungover you are.”
“Dude,” Kris says, with feeling, “you are so overdramatic.”
“No no no, do not call me overdramatic, I am perfectly dramatic enough. You are underdramatic.”
“That’s not even a word,” Kris says.
“This is not helping me become less worried about you,” Adam says pointedly.
“Adam,” Kris says, grinning drunkenly, “I’m fine. See?” He pats his chest, doing a little spin and then crashing into the closed elevator doors. “Ouch. Okay, well that hurt, but I’m still fine, okay.”
“Right,” Adam says sarcastically.
“And just because I’ve never been with a guy before doesn’t mean I don’t like you,” Kris continues, stepping forward haltingly and leaning his cheek on Adam’s shoulder. “I like you a lot. I do.”
“I like you too,” Adam says warily, counting to twenty inside his head. “We’re friends. Because you’re straight.” He blinks. “Wait, I don’t mean that that’s the only reason we’re friends. Or that we’d be something else if you weren’t straight. Which you are, so it doesn’t even matter, right?”
“Maybe,” Kris mumbles, “you should fuck me and find out.”
And if that weren’t stunning enough, the elevator doors open on Kris’s words and Adam is greeted with an elderly couple, staring them down as if Adam is the end of all morality and decency.
“Sorry,” he says, suspiciously high-pitched, dragging Kris into the elevator and shoving him into the corner. “Stay,” he says sternly. “Oh not you. Him. I mean - sorry, can you hit ‘seven’ for me?”
--
It’s stressful, okay, that’s all Adam’s saying. Kris is touchy-feely sober and when he’s drunk and apparently hot for Adam, he’s impossible. There may or may not have been some minor indecency in the hallway, and there’s a traumatized maid that Adam hopes he never has to see ever again, but for the most part Adam emerged unscathed. And un…fucked. And so did Kris. For the record.
He spends a good hour after depositing Kris in his room pacing and fretting before downing a row of mini vodka bottles from the mini-bar and passing out on the couch halfway through a Golden Girls rerun. His wakeup call the next morning consists of a frantic phone call at an incredibly indecent hour from the director’s assistant, who informs him that he has exactly one hour to get down to the restaurant in the lobby for a breakfast meeting or she will personally come upstairs and kick his ass, and Adam really believes her. It’s not a nice morning.
So Adam takes a shower, and worries about seeing Kris, and gets dressed, and worries about seeing Kris, and walks downstairs, and worries about seeing Kris, and almost chickens out because he sees Kris through the window, before forcing himself to walk inside, because he’s Adam fucking Lambert, bitches, but seriously oh my God, Kris looks incredible. Son of a bitch.
“Adam,” Kris greets, looking nonplussed and non-hungover, the little shit. “Sleep well?” Adam glares at him venomously, and he smirks.
The director shows up soon, thankfully, and orders enough food to feed an army. Then he smiles pleasantly, and Adam feels a cold shiver.
“So,” he says, “we’ve decided to make it a love story.”
Adam chokes on his tea. “Okay,” Kris says cheerily, and Adam chokes again. On nothing.
“But,” Adam sputters, “we’ve already filmed practically the whole thing?”
“I’ll tell you a secret, Adam,” the director replies, leaning in conspiratorially. “The only difference between a romance and a bromance is the kiss at the ending.” He leans back in his chair casually. “An extra week of shooting to throw some more relevant lines in, and we’re good to go. And we have a rewrite of the ending scene, of course.”
“But - “
“Great,” says Kris, kicking Adam in the shin. “Just send us the new lines.”
“Thanks for being a trooper, Kris,” the director says, and starts digging into the food with a vigor that is at best, odd, and at worst, a sign of rabies. (What is this guy on? Adam wonders.)
“I, uh - “Adam tries again, “really, really don’t know if this is a good idea, I mean - Kris is straight - “ Kris rolls his eyes. “Shut up, you are, or at least everyone thinks you are, because why wouldn’t they, since you, you know, only sleep with women - “
“One woman,” Kris says pointedly. “Which is a moot point now. As they already know.”
“Your fanbase!” Adam says frantically. “Uh - this is - bad idea. Really, really bad idea. Cuz - he’ll lose fans, and people will think I corrupted him, and - and stuff - “
“Actually,” the director says, “the research shows that gay people are in, now.”
“Gay people are in?” Adam repeats, torn between laughing and crying. He could seriously go either way at this point.
“It’s very popular,” the director says, “plus there’s the whole Kradam thing, which honestly is the only reason we’re doing this in the first place - “
“Um,” Adam says, and is ignored.
“So we wanna take it a step further. Push the limits.”
“Plus,” Kris chimes in, “everyone already thinks we’re fucking, anyway.”
“Am I - can you actually hear me talking? Or am I actually making no sound at all?” Adam asks. “This makes no sense. Comprende? None!”
“Look, Adam,” the director starts, setting down his fork, finally, “I think you’re looking at this the wrong way - “
“Oh ho no,” Adam says, “do not pull that shit with me. Don’t even.”
“I’m sure you’ll come around,” the director replies, wiping his mouth delicately. “I have to go the bathroom,” he then announces, and pushes back from the table and wanders off. Adam stares after him incredulously (no seriously, what is that guy on?) before turning his gaze on Kris.
“What the fuck was that?!”
“So it’s a love story now,” Kris says, shrugging. “Not like this movie can get any more insane than it already is.”
Adam splutters incoherently, flailing his arms around in some hope to convey his feelings on the subject.
“Dude,” Kris says, “calm down. You’re making a scene.”
“Oh, fuck this,” Adam says. “You all are crazy.”
“You’re the one waving your arms around like a lunatic!” Kris replies.
“Why am I the only one noticing the insanity, here?” Adam asks, mostly rhetorically. “Like - I really want to know. I’m stumped.”
Kris sighs. “Just take some deep breaths,” he says. “And here - have a donut.”
“I don’t want a fucking donut!”
“Fine,” Kris replies, setting it back down on the plate, “you don’t have to yell at me.”
Adam stares at him, unimpressed. “If this is a game, it’s not funny,” he says soberly.
Kris looks startled. “Game?” he says. “I’m not playing a game.”
Adam huffs. “Right.”
Kris narrows his eyes at him darkly. “You are either stupid or in denial, I can’t figure out which.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kris sighs, drops his fork, and before Adam can react, leans in and kisses him, right there in front of everyone in the restaurant.
Two primary thoughts battle for attention, one being holy fuck Kris is kissing me, and the second being holy fuck I’m kissing a guy in Utah, we’re gonna get killed, and before Adam can decide which is the more urgent, Kris pulls away.
“As of next Saturday, I’m officially divorced,” Kris says, staring intently at his coffee cup. “I’ve been trying to send you subtle signals for like a month but either I suck at it or you do, because you haven’t noticed. And yes I was drunk last night but I knew what I was doing, so.” He raises his eyebrows. “Your move.”
“I - “ Adam stammers. “Um - Mormons!”
“What?” Kris looks at him like he’s crazy. Which is not undeserved.
“I gotta go,” Adam says in reply, and bolts.
Because he’s smart. He thinks.
--
The next few weeks are all reshoots, mostly with Megan and Kris, so Adam takes the opportunity to avoid him at all costs, freak out with every fiber of his being, and call everyone he knows to ask for advice. His family all hang up on him after the first five minutes, and then start avoiding his calls. Well, Neil still answers, but only to laugh at him, loudly, which is not fucking helpful at all.
Brad pretends not to hear anything he says on the subject of Kris, which leads to Adam babbling while Brad carries on a completely different conversation, independent of Adam’s input or presence. Lane tells him that if he wants therapy from her as well she’s going to need a bigger salary, and all his other friends are equally, if not more, unhelpful.
It doesn’t help that Kris keeps sending him these texts which may be interpreted as flirting, if Adam was crazy, which he is not. So it’s really just annoying, when he gets texts that say shit like, you look hot today and are you done freaking out yet, because I’m getting impatient. Which that was one just ominous, okay, winky emoticon or not.
He gets the script for the redone final scene, which has been changed from a heartfelt reunion at a concert between two best friends, to a romantic movie-screen kiss at a Hollywood party. Oh, and Kris? Is naked.
His character! His character, Kris Wilson, not Kris Allen, is naked. Is what Adam means. The fucking streaking thing. Not that filming that Sweet Corn Festival scene hadn’t been torture enough, now Adam has to fucking kiss him, again, and he’ll be naked, again, and if Adam hasn’t mentioned this already it’s really, really unfair that Adam has seen Kris naked more times than he he’s seen some his boyfriends naked in the past few months and they’ve never once made it past first base. A crime.
Not that he wants to go past first base, because Kris is straight. This is all a divorce-induced period of hysteria, or something, and Adam will fall on the fucking sword and resist Kris’s wily temptations because he is a fucking awesome friend and that’s that. Because he’s straight.
“That gets less believable every time you say it,” is Neil’s response to that.
“Shut up,” Adam replies, and Neil laughs at him again. And then hangs up.
The morning of the final scene, Adam spends a solid hour giving himself a pep talk in the mirror. It only serves to make him more nervous, especially since Kris pops his head in and Adam nearly jumps through the window in surprise.
“Ready for today?” Kris asks, shit-eating grin spread across his face.
“You suck,” Adam says, “go away right now.”
“Do you think I should just go out there naked?” Kris asks, ignoring him. Adam squeaks pathetically. “I think it would save time.”
“I am very disappointed in your behavior,” Adam says shrilly, pushing him out of the bathroom bodily. “Go away right now!”
“Fine, fine,” Kris says, laughing and holding up his hands. “See you on set.” Adam glares; that sounded much more foreboding than it should’ve.
Then he goes back to his pep talk, his confidence in tatters. When this is over, Kris owes him a fruit basket. Or a Mustang.
The scene goes like this: Kris streaks the party, and then comes back outside, still stark “naked” (in reality: underwear. Tight underwear, with tiny Spongebobs on them. Yeah.) and has a heartfelt romantic conversation before a heartfelt romantic kiss. With Adam, who is stuffed into some odd suit thing made mostly out of leather, and this should not be as hot as it is.
It’s fairly ridiculous, and Adam has not tried to figure out the new plot of the movie any harder than he’d tried to figure out the old plot, but apparently Kris Wilson is declaring his love for Adam Jones by showing his naughty bits to a bunch of strangers, which Adam really hopes makes sense in some sort of context, because in the real life context, it’s insane.
What is also insane is that Kris has to run through the party set about a million times, because apparently they really do need that many camera angles, or maybe it just feels like a million times to Adam, who is trying to figure out a way to strangle himself without anyone noticing. It’s not promising. Regardless of the fact that Kris isn’t actually naked, just in underwear, but the - it’s not like Adam needs to see the goods to want to take them home, okay. And plus Adam’s seen Kris’s money shot before, so it’s all fucking pointless anyway.
By the time Adam himself is called to his cue, Kris is shiny with sweat from running, which really isn’t helping, and Adam forgets his lines three times so they go through the first part multiple times, Kris’s smirk growing in size with each time. Finally, an assistant pulls Adam aside and asks if he needs to take a “break,” which pisses him off, and fuck this, okay, he can do this. He once had to stop having sex, mid-blow job, to go on and perform - this? Is nothing.
He resolves to concentrate, and he finds that by staring just above Kris’s head, this starts to actually work. “You’re crazy.”
“Crazy for you,” Kris replies, jogging up and stopping on the cue like a pro. He also makes the cheesy line sound incredibly…not cheesy, which…figures.
“You just showed your ass to half of the record company!”
Kris grins crookedly. “Was it enough proof for you?”
Adam suddenly becomes intensely aware of the thirty-some people watching this closely. “I don’t know. Hey, that might be your new hobby now, who knows.”
“My hobbies do not include running naked through a roomful of people,” Kris says, stepping closer onto the second cue smoothly. “They do, however, include spending time with you - “
Adam’s neck starts to heat with a blush that is, unfortunately, all too real. “Shut up - “
“ - and talking to you, and being with you, and - do I need to go on?”
“No,” Adam whispers.
“Good,” Kris says.
This is the part where they’re supposed to kiss, but Adam can’t seem to make himself move. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a few people fidgeting nervously, the director holding out one meaty paw to hold them back.
“Adam,” Kris murmurs, too low for the booms to pick up, “it doesn’t have to mean anything.” He looks suddenly unsure, and Adam feels an odd pressure in his chest.
“Yes it does,” he says, and goes for broke.
Kris makes a small surprised noise as Adam grabs his face and pulls him forward the final few inches, wrapping him up in a kiss worthy of any romantic musical/reality show fusion movie ending, shitty dialogue and all. Kris hangs limply in Adam’s arms before getting with the program and kissing back, pressing up against Adam and clutching at his shoulders frantically. Adam hums in approval, contenting himself with exploring the skin of Kris’s lower back.
Dimly, he registers loud voices and thinks, what the fuck, don’t they know I’m having a life-changing moment here, before recognizing the word “CUT!” Adam tries to ignore it. “Guys. Seriously, cut!”
Adam breaks the kiss reluctantly, pushing a dazed Kris away and smirking. “Cut!” he says merrily. “So - another take, yeah?”
He hears a whoop that sounds suspiciously like Allison from somewhere, but the rest of the crowd is silent, staring at them blankly.
“What?” Adam asks. “We’re professionals, you guys.” Looking over at Kris, he winks, who smiles dazedly. “Let’s get this wrapped.”
--
Six months later, Adam gets a call from Megan.
“Straight to videoooo!” she calls. “They sent me a copy. It’s awesome. Like - epically so. I can’t even believe it exists.”
“I think I got one too,” Adam replies. “Somewhere. Maybe Kris stole it.”
“I did not,” Kris squawks indignantly, from Adam’s couch. He’s lying on his stomach and there’s something sports-related playing on the television; Adam is so not interested.
“We should have a watch party!” Megan exclaims. “We can all get together and watch you grope Kris on film.”
“Shut up,” Adam groans, “that is so tacky.”
“How many people can say they have video evidence of the beginning of their grand romance?” Megan replies. “Not many non-creepy people, anyway. You guys are like the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt of music.”
“Which one of us gets to be Angelina?” Adam asks.
“Me,” Kris calls absently. Adam snorts.
“I’ll call you with a date,” Megan promises - threatens. “Be ready.” And hangs up.
Adam grumbles, ambling over to the couch and kicking at Kris until he makes room. “We have to watch the movie.”
“What movie?” Kris asks absently.
“Our movie,” Adam says, flicking Kris’s ear. “Duh.”
“Oh,” Kris says, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“The acting classes did pay off in the end,” Adam muses. “Eventually.”
“Painful,” Kris comments.
“Oh, don’t be such a downer, Kris,” Adam cajoles, “it might be fun.”
“You suck,” Kris says, tilting his face up with a grin, and Adam leans down to take that invitation happily.
“Only when you ask nicely,” he murmurs, and seals it with a kiss, or maybe a promise.
And that’s that.
--
The end!