rpf: sow and reap
sow and reapkaty, adam (kris/katy, kris/adam, katy/adam BFF-ness)
pg-13.
it's an eye for an eye, as they know it. 3, 580 words.
tl; dr notes: posting this early at paintedboys is, like, ripping off the bandage. this has stayed inside my external harddrive (a new one, if i might add) for too long. and if it stays longer, i might hate it? even more? oh, well.
special thanks to my lovely beta everytimeyougo: bb, i made a few changes. eek.
written for savemoony, who pretty much wanted a) katy and adam going shopping, or b) a conversation about polyamorous relationship, so i kinda meshed up the two prompts together. She also insisted on no Katy bashing, so Katy FTW :)
breathes in, breathes out, dim the lights, here we go.
Katy was in the kitchen when she heard the snickers from behind her.
She placed down her mug on the countertop and turned around to find Kris. He had his cell phone in his hand (the new one they gave him), which he wiggled at her direction. He was smiling too.
"He texted me," he said.
She looked back at him, figuring it out, or trying to at least. "Who? Oh-" The realization came too late, but it was there nonetheless.
Still, Kris told her. "Adam."
"Oh," she repeated, just because. And only then did she see the magazine in Kris’ other hand. Adam's eyes stared back at hers from where he was lying down. He seemed comfortable to be there; to be here.
"He said he’s embarrassed," Kris continued, mildly chuckling. "I'm gonna tell him to chill out."
He was quick, returning his attention to his phone again. His thumb was already hovering on the buttons when the words stumbled out from her mouth.
"Tell Adam I have a crush on him."
Kris laughed loudly at that, throwing back his head as he did so. The laugh held seven years in it and she giggled in result. Meanwhile, the screen light on the cell phone dimmed.
As she went back to her mug, her eyes skirted involuntarily to the forgotten space beside the refrigerator. The red aprons hung there, futile. They were there because of the money Aunt Gayle sent them, they were there for "Good TV" and now they were running out of purpose.
"Do you want a cup of this too?" asked Katy over her shoulder. She waited in silence, eyeing her distorted reflection in her coffee. The answer never came.
"Kris?" she called out. He was smiling at his phone when she turned to him again. The screen light was on once more, coloring his face. And it brought her back home, many years ago. It was Halloween and she was 8. Daddy taught her to put a flashlight under her chin and told her, "This is how you become evil."
The smile stayed on his lips as Kris faced her, slowly. "Yeah?"
The magazine crumpled in his palm.
~
The world was weird that way. If Daniel hadn't told him about the audition, Kris wouldn't have known about it at all. If Matt had sung well that night, Kris wouldn't have gone to the bigger stage at all. And maybe if Adam weren't...
Speaking of which-
"Small world, huh?"
Katy was going to say, "Weird," but found herself agreeing instead. "I know."
Adam grinned at her, looking amused. She returned the favor.
“What are you doing here?” As the sentence formed on its own, she bit her lower lip with remorse. The question sounded redundant. Wry. Anybody would know the answer. “Rhetorical” was the word.
“Shopping,” and here, Adam laughed a little. “Same as you, obviously.”
“Yeah,” she was giggling again. Some blonde strands fell and covered her eyes. Katy brushed them off, using the moment to seek improvement. “I mean, why aren’t you rehearsing? With the others?”
She wondered if Adam knew what she meant; if she really meant anything at all. She should’ve let the loose strands cover a part of her face.
“It’s a dress fitting day,” he replied with ease. “I already did my turn this morning. Better use my free time wisely, while your hubby spends his in agony. God knows how long it can be for him when it comes to clothes and that stuff.”
Adam was laughing again as he finished. Katy let out a chuckle too, dry and short-lived.
"Yes, I know that!" she could hear her own voice then, louder than usual. She has always been the determined one but never was she loud. She was the coolest chick, remember?
Adam didn't seem to notice anything, though, pointing at a store not far from them instead. "Shall we?" he said. "This one's my favorite."
She nodded at that, following him through the entrance in the meanwhile. Once inside, Adam immediately looked at her and mumbled through his wide grin, "Those are new,” before making his way to the left-hand corner of the room. Katy watched in silence as he picked up a shiny leather jacket that looked exactly like the one he was wearing.
And that was when she scoffed.
So, she walked over to where Adam stood unaware, his back facing her unthreateningly. Katy waited until she was close enough, making sure her voice reach Adam, clearly.
"You're right!" she started. And she could tell from the way Adam turned to her abruptly, or how he dropped the jacket he held to a messy pile of clothes underneath, he wasn't expecting this at all. Whatever this was.
"Kris has never been a great shopper, I mean," she continued, focusing on a pair of jeans that hung next to her. Her hand moved on its own accord, fingering the coarse fabric.
"I had to literally drag him so we could start the wedding registry. He's always been sucky at this. That's why I was very shocked, you know, when he got me a dress. It was for his birthday dinner. He bought himself a new shirt and me, that little black dress. And it was a surprise- from him, for me. So he didn't tell me anything. Didn't ask for my size or anything. And it turned out great. It fit me perfectly."
She paused there, exhaling. "He just knew," she said after a while. "It was beautiful."
The jeans rocked back and forward in their hanger when Katy finally let go of them. She decided to watch them a little bit more, feeling the left end of her lips turned gradually upwards. She looked up after some time, turning to Adam.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
*
The thing with them was, there was always something to do, to talk about. It could be afternoon and they would be chilling in the living room, or it could be nighttime and they would hang out beside the pool. And they would…talk.
And this was one of those afternoons.
The mansion seemed to get larger in size and Adam kept losing people-literally. Up until then, he never realized what numbers meant. How fast they moved. And before he knew it, he found himself missing.
Kris was nowhere to be found.
Matt was sitting on the left end of the couch, spilling out jokes whenever he could. The rest seemed to be everywhere, what with Adam sprawling across the sofa, Allison lounging on the carpet and Danny jumping up and down in the center. He was reenacting something, or someone-his way of responding to Matt's earlier story. And Adam laughed at that, wholeheartedly. The guy could be hilarious when he wanted to be; gotta give him that.
What was even more amusing, though, was how swift Adam’s own attention could change.
"Hey!" he called out, as Kris walked in and the front door swung close behind him. Danny stopped mid-sentence, turning his head at Kris' direction. The others followed closely behind.
The truth remained that Adam was always the one to spot him first.
Allison waved at Kris from the carpet, beckoning him. Kris nodded, sitting on the empty space on the couch near her. Too far, still.
"What did I miss?" asked Kris. He was wearing his worn-out white t-shirt again; he wore it too often. Adam knew this because he saw it in the laundry just a week ago. A pair of sunglasses peaked out from a pocket in his jeans. And there was the bracelet. "The accessory for do-gooders," Adam said one night before Kris left him to sleep. And there was the necklace that the stylist gave him, meaningful to him merely due to the fact that it was, indeed, given.
He forgot to shave again. Or maybe someone told him not to.
And the t-shirt was damp.
"Is it raining outside?" Adam said, breaking the brief silence. And it was as if he was the joker now because everyone turned to stare at him all of a sudden. Kris included.
"What?" replied Kris, chuckling. "I don't know. Drizzling?"
Matt let out a laugh too, pausing only to ask, "Where have you been?"
Kris glanced down at his toes. It was quiet when he finally answered, "Out. With Katy."
"What did you guys do?" It was Adam again, brash and rapid. It shouldn’t have been foreign, at least not to him. But it was. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed Allison looking up. She might be glaring at him but he wouldn't know for sure; she wasn't the one he was staring at.
Kris, too, looked at him; there was a slight grin stretched across his lips. "I haven't seen my wife in two days. What did you think we were doing?"
Even Allison laughed at that. Someone was pointing at her, saying something about being too little or something. Adam couldn't make out who it was.
He was laughing too.
Adam used to star in a Broadway show.
~
Katy stood there, smirking. It didn’t seem to belong to her; as if someone had speed painted it on her face and rushed to the exit before Adam could do anything about it. And for the first time in his life, Adam thought she was ugly.
He remembered she was a Homecoming Queen once.
“Oh-,” it came loosely from his side. It hung there above his head, whilst Katy stepped backwards and away from him.
She moved to a row of dresses at opposite side of the store, flicking through them mindlessly. All of them seemed too big for her. Katy was a small girl; Adam remembered that too.
When he finally approached her, Katy turned to him with wide eyes; her lips, meanwhile, were a mere straight line.
“What did you buy him, then?” Adam asked her.
She didn’t say anything, staring back at him instead. Her lips seemed to part and close in doubt.
“Nothing,” she muttered afterwards.
“Huh?”
“Nothing,” she was yelping this time. "He’s just- He doesn’t like a lot of stuff.”
Adam watched as Katy shifted her tiny weight from one foot to another, waiting for her eyes as they wandered from the ceiling to the cashier at the far end of the room. She was biting her lip when she met his gaze again.
"He has feathers now."
There was a smile on Adam's face when he told Katy that.
*
They still exchanged e-mails, three times a week. Sometimes more, when Katy wasn't too busy with papers and exams. There was still a "Love, Kris" at the end of each e-mail. But she figured it was something already set for everyone: his mom, dad, college friends.
It wasn't just for her.
By this time, she had also figured out that both of them made the right decision. One year was long and short at the same time. "I'll see you when I see you?" Kris said to her at the airport, with a one-way ticket to Southeast Asia in his grasp; most of his sentences seemed to be ended with question marks.
And so they parted as friends, or so a fortune cookie would say.
But this town of hers was small. And Kris' mom still invited her over whenever she came home for weekends.
"Here's a tissue."
Daniel practically ran to her when he saw Katy walked in, waving a tissue at her. She pulled it out of his grasp, giggling.
"What?"
"Mom has been dying to see you so she can tell it to your face," Daniel replied. "She wouldn't let Dad do it because we all know he can't ever finish the story. I mean, you know how he is-"
She followed him inside, brows furrowed at the sight of both parents. She could've been a part of this; of them.
"Remember that expensive guitar?" asked Kim to her once she was seated. "The one we bought him?"
Katy looked at the three of them, receiving their expecting stares. "Yes?" she answered after a while.
Daniel was standing beside his mom, and impatient. He was rolling his eyes as he interrupted, "He gave it away!"
Kim swatted his knee, saying something about spoiling, or maybe another thing Katy couldn't hear clearly over Daniel's roar of laughter. Neil was crying already.
She chose to observe instead, taking everything in with a quiet laugh. At one end, Kim was still arguing with Daniel, who couldn't stop grinning. And Neil, he had had his own tissue ready. Katy watched him wiping his tears away, muttering something incoherently at the same time. She stared at his bowed head, trying to listen. His murmured words sounded like a chanting in her head.
"He loves everyone. He loves everyone. He loves everyone-"
~
Adam quickly looked away from her, drifting his attention to the stacks of folded men's t-shirts near them. And Katy was silent, watching him. He has lost his smile by then, chewing on the inside of his mouth instead.
"We like Adam." She remembered she said it once.
"He-" her voice was rusty when she began. Adam flinched a little but ignored her anyway, letting her continue.
"He has a big heart."
Adam still didn't say anything to that, pursing his lips at the t-shirts. Katy watched as his hands moved to sort through them mindlessly.
"Do you know that movie?"
It came from her, sort of. It was there yet out-of-place all the while. But Adam straightened up at the question.
"What?
"A movie," she repeated. "I forget what it's called."
He titled his head to one side, confused.
“The point is, there’s this guy,” she continued, hesitating. “And these girls. Two.”
Before her, Adam heaved a sigh. "What about them?"
"It's," she stuttered. "Sometimes the only way to work- to make something work, is if you have someone else to- make it work. Together. With both of you." Her voice trailed away as she rambled on, "Both of us."
She was marveling at the ceiling again, pulling her words out of the chandeliers. "I’ve thought about- I mean..."
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she exhaled. There were gentle frowns on Adam's forehead when she opened them again.
"He has a big heart."
Adam stayed quiet, waiting.
"He loves everyone."
Katy laid her hands on top of the t-shirts; her palms pressed them down gently, caressing the softness of the cotton against her skin. Adam watched her temple forming wrinkled as she squinted.
“Lord,” she said under her breath, shaking her head a little.
“This… E-mail asked me what I would buy. For him.” She was frantic all of a sudden, talking to herself rather than to anyone else in the room. Out-of-character, as Adam inadvertently reminded himself. And he was too baffled to call Cut, settling his eyes on the pieces of clothing before them instead.
“I don’t even-”
Her voice crackled at that, forcing Adam to look back at her. She was staring at him already; a frown marked her face and her lips quivered as she spoke again.
“This could be one of your parts.”
*
"They made it sound like they were expecting us to say we dance naked under the rain every night."
Kris burst out an indiscernible sound at that. "What?" he said between the chuckles.
"I mean, come on! 'What rituals before performing?' Don't they know you used to sing in churches?"
There was another round of laughter that came afterwards, too loud for this time of night. Morning. Whichever. All Adam knew was, it was late and Kris was still awake. And it was very Adam of him to celebrate.
"I know, right?" said Kris, fidgeting on his bed. "I mean, I don't think they'll believe it if I tell them that all you have to do is just to feel it."
Adam kept still on his own bed, blinking. "Yeah," he agreed after some time.
"Yeah, when I did Ain't No Sunshine…" Kris paused then, licking his lips just to fill the void. Much to popular belief, Kris had always been the reluctant one, meticulously laying out facts and secrets. There was a reason why he mumbled so much.
"I mean there was a point where we," Kris stopped again, pointing to an invisible space beside him. And Adam nodded at that, knowingly. Because the space had always been there in the room, even more prominent when Kris talked to his phone late at night, under the blanket, whispering so slightly as not to wake Adam up (But doing so anyway). Kris did usually take his phone downstairs and called home but there would be times when he forgot to say his second, or maybe third "I love you." And God forbid that Kris Allen should ever, ever make someone feel left out. Out of love.
"Broke up," he continued all of a sudden, startling Adam in result. "For a year. And, I'm telling you, there really was no sunshine." Kris was gesturing his air quotes again as he reached the last word. Adam snickered at that, while Kris shrugged and scratched the back of his neck.
"As cheesy as it sounds," Kris finished.
Leaning on his own bedpost, Adam huffed another quiet "Yeah." Kris sighed, picking at his sheets; he seemed to be sitting at an odd angle, too far to the right. He looked like he would be falling sometime soon and Adam counted inwardly the breadth of distance. But then again, maybe old habits did die hard and somewhere, a young bride was lying down on the left side of a cold bed.
"I don't wanna live without her anymore."
~
The silence was almost rude, blanketing and persistent. And Katy was shaking, going back and forth between Adam and the t-shirts.
Adam dropped his head, studying the way Katy’s fingers clutched at the shirts. Soon, his right hand followed his gaze, placing itself on her left. His thumb moved in rhythm, mapping the smooth creases and circling the knuckles before resting at that white gold band. He pressed the small diamond on it.
“And I said disco.” The phrase slipped out of him, falling in between. Katy’s palm tensed under his touch.
“Wha-“
But Adam went on, “He was mad at me that afternoon. He wouldn’t tell it to my face but he was so pissed at me. Didn’t talk to me for hours.”
He paused for a moment, giving way for a quiet sigh. “Ended up being the best of the night. It’s revenge as he knows it.”
He let his palm splay over hers just one more time, feeling the diamond as it softly grazed the books of his fingers. And when he finally cupped her hand in his, Adam watched as the t-shirt under her palm wrinkled.
“I think he’s alright with this one.”
It rolled out of his tongue, fast. And easy. He sighed then, looking back at Katy. But she offered nothing in return, staring at him for a long time.
She breathed in.
“Adam-” It came from her, weak and quavering. But he just clasped her hand tighter, the diamond poking and tickling his skin. And he said, “Yes,” and again, “Yes,” letting his voice grow louder the second time around.
“He’s fine.”
He managed a smile too, holding her gaze. She was blushing already, beautiful after all.
“I-,” she croaked. Katy stopped there, clearing her throat.
She never tried again.
She half-turned her hand, though, curling her own thumb around his. In the end, she smiled back.
They stood like that for a moment, not daring to let anything out. But there was a sudden flash of light that distracted them, turning their attention to the front door. Adam grunted when he saw three men outside the store; each of them not without a camera.
Katy’s hand twitched inside his grasp, calling him back to her again. She was uncomfortable, fidgeting and rolling her eyes at him. He shrugged.
“Come on,” he told her. He grinned at her and turned around, leading their way to the back of the room. Behind him, Katy was laughing.
Their hands were still holding.
*
Adam had seen that girl before.
He remembered Kris being so happy at that time; ecstatic, even. Well, why wouldn’t he? He was bouncing on the stage, rather than singing his Michael Jackson. Adam watched him as he lifted his hand and pointed.
That was when he first saw her; arm flapping as she waved down excitedly. And Kris kept pointing: You, you.
“Katy, come here,” Kris called out and the girl walked closer as prompted.
She was beaming at Adam when she arrived next to him and Kris. Adam smiled back.
“He’s my roommate!” It was Kris again, half-shouting so she can hear him over the loud music. The party was mediocre at best but, hey! They were going to be on TV in another week. There’d be better ones.
“Oh, great!” she cried back. “He doesn’t like to shower, by the way!”
Adam burst out a laugh, looking at Kris behind half-closed eyelids as he squeezed the girl’s shoulder.
“Thanks for the heads up!” he said, extending his right hand her way. “I’m Adam.”
“Katy,” she told him, reaching for his fingers.
They shook hands.
End.
sappy tl; dr end notes: i have to say, this has been the hardest thing for me. writing for someone else is not easy, i should know this by now.
other things i've learned after finishing this: my beta mentioned something about "sacrifice" that makes me went, "oh!" (TY) and also, i was listening to Gregory and the Hawk's Boats and Birds as i wrote, and it hit me that, err, letting go is the highest form of love.
anyways, constructive criticism is more than welcomed.