Fic: Wizard Not Included | American Idol RPF | Adult

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Wizard Not Included

Fandom: American Idol RPF
Pairing: Adam/Brad, Adam/Kris
Rating: Adult
Comments: With many thanks to madame_d, who made this a million times better, and to musicboxgirl and llamabitchyo for telling me it doesn't suck.

Warnings: Recreational drug use.

Summary: Adam felt so weird and crazy that it couldn't be anything but full-on, true and for serious love. He was done. He was a Boyz II Men song. He was a Julia Roberts movie.



In the desert, everything made sense.

It was community and love and spirit; a place out of time and free from the oppression of money and thirst and jealousy and all those negative bullshit emotions that come with it. It was unity toward a common goal in the celebration of freedom, organized anarchy because everyone gave and everyone took and balance was key, major key.

But to Adam it was waking up to watch the sun rise with the taste of morning shrooms still sharp on his tongue and his boy leaning against him in a sleep-soft heaviness while the Earth turned gold and red around them. He slid his fingers into the sand, right up to his knuckles like Amelie with the dried beans, a secret pleasure--except that he could feel the Earth's heartbeat on the tips of his fingers, and he was pretty sure Amelie never got that from the beans.

He said, "Adam is a directionless anti-hero type dude who is all cock and no action, a clubslut who's never had to have a real job but has lived off ramen and peanut butter and his parents' benevolence whenever it seemed like he might have to get one. Adam likes: eating his bagels from the inside out, listening for the hidden messages between the harmonies of his favorite songs that he can only hear when he's high, being held down while his boy goes down, and of course, dick. Adam dislikes: anything hipster, the way that swim trunks stick to your thighs when you get out of the water, and the aggressive voices of announcers in monster truck rally commercials. Above all else, Adam believes in love." He tried to sound like the narrator from the movie in that clipped-but-lyrical way, but he didn't speak French so he never really had a shot. Brad got it anyway, though, the way Brad always did.

"You've seen Moulin Rouge too many times," Brad said, getting to his feet and shielding his eyes against the glare from the sun. He didn't say anything about Amelie, though, because Brad disliked: when people used old-timey words like they were trying to be Audrey Hepburn, derivative pop-punk music, and movies that deny the existence of destiny while relying heavily on coincidence, especially if they're foreign. "C'mon, Ms. Bohemia. I'm starving. I want to find the woman with the hair that made those pancakes yesterday."

Adam looked up at him and thought that above all, he believed in love. "Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong."

It was Brad's turn to say, All you need is love, but instead he rolled his eyes and made an impatient gesture, fingers sliding through the air like ripples on the surface of a lake, skipping stones in the canal, and now Adam was just getting his movies confused. Fucking shrooms. Brad said, "Here we are now. Entertain us," and somehow, that made the most sense of all, even if it wasn't classic Beatles. Adam looked up at the sky, at the thin clouds burning orange in the distance and thought, Oh. He thought, it's time to make shit happen. Being an anti-hero was kind of lame and pretty weak, and he'd always preferred Fitzgerald to Salinger anyway, plus he'd heard that Salinger was kind of a dick. Then he got up and said, "I really fucking love you."

Brad said, "I know, right." The Not-yet Burning Man loomed in the distance like a giant scarecrow and Adam started whistling, if I only had a brain until Brad was singing along, pulling him back toward the camp with skipping follow-the-yellow-brick-road steps.

They went to find the lady with the hair who made those pancakes.

*

The Saturday after the Bill O'Reilly shit airs, Scarlett kidnaps him from the Idol mansion and takes him back to her crappy sublet in Melrose for some Them Time. Adam would rather go out, dress up and get down, dance until he can't feel his legs and the only sound in his head is Gaga-Katy-Britney with some Rihanna for variety and some Madonna for class and some Missy for funk, no hateration, holleration in this dancerie; but Scarlett takes one look at him and says, "No way, Sugarpie, you need to r-e-l-a-x major."

"I can't smoke up," Adam says, and she rolls her eyes.

"We can chill without herbal aid, you just gotta vibe the kick-back attitude. You're like a great big wall right now, all bricked up." Adam doesn't say anything but he knows she's right; she pretty much always is. And once they're in her crappy box of an apartment eating bad Chinese from the cartons, their legs tangled together in the middle of the couch he once helped her liberate from behind a dumpster as long as she promised have have it professionally cleaned, he feels better. Free at last.

The wine helps.

"Box wine is so much better than jug wine," Adam says. He's not drunk but he can feel it, r-e-l-a-x. "When I win American Idol and I'm rich and famous, we will never drink jug wine again."

"We'll drink it, but only on special occasions when we want to remember our misspent youth and the glory days of shitty apartments and desert adventures and living on creative juices alone, or in your case, the tasty combination of creative juices and semen."

"Creative juices: like semen, now with sixty percent more flava." He laughs and he's definitely feeling better. The only thing embarrassing about those photos is how out of touch the Bill O'Reillys of this world are. So completely two thousand and late. "Gotta get my protein somehow, babycakes." He feels better but his brain is so loud still, with only the low murmur of the television showing the only movie Scarlett ever wants to watch, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, to fill it. Miss Jean Brodie says, "Little girls!" and Scarlett talks over her with a bad English accent, "I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the creme de la creme." Adam joins in, sneering at Scarlett with his best Elvis the King, "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life." He thinks he should make Allison watch this movie, but then maybe she's not really ready, she might not get it and then he'd just be disappointed. Sometimes it's hard to remember that she's still just a kid. Scarlett pokes him in the thigh with her toe.

"Are you worried?" she says.

Adam has to think about it before he shakes his head yes. "Not about the competition. Not about douchebags like Bill O'Reilly. No one will bother me about it until I'm out of the competition, and by then it won't matter because I'll either have succeeded or failed. But Brad doesn't need this."

"Brad doesn't need you to take care of him. Brad is supremely chill. Brad has a destiny, you know." She's smiling a little like it's a joke, and it's a little funny, but mostly not. Because Brad believes in destiny and a path for everyone, nothing is coincidence but everything is serendipitous. Adam just thinks Brad likes the sound of the word and likes having a philosophy that can't be argued with. It's convenience, not revelation, which is pretty much why they broke up in the first place--Adam wanted to believe he had control and the power to make his own way, and Brad wanted to be a leaf on the wind. Deep philosophical differences is what Adam says when people ask. Also, because Brad loved him but wasn't in love with him, not by the end, but the first reason is less painful and Adam only admits the love thing on nights like this. Box wine nights when he's feeling fragile enough that the only lyrics in his head are Belle & Sebastian sadness, all if there was a sequel, would you love me like an equal? Sequels are never as good, though.

"What about Drake?" Scarlett says after a long silence.

Miss Jean Brodie says, "Safety does not come first. Goodness, truth, and beauty come first," and Adam says, "He's summer loving dreamy, like a Shampoo-era Burt Reynolds without the slutty, but three months is a long time to wait for someone you've only been dating for six, and not seriously or exclusively."

Scarlett raises an eyebrow. "Are you talking about Drake, or yourself?"

Adam shrugs. "Does it matter?"

"Love doesn't just happen. It's not easy, it's not some kind of Fred-n-Ginger affair where you get to skip all the hard parts by doing a song and dance together. You have to make it happen. Haven't you learned anything from Gossip Girl?"

Adam finishes his wine and watches the movie for a while, half listening to the wisdom of Miss Jean Brodie and half to the chilled reality of Miss Scarlett No Last Name. "I think I can only make one thing happen at a time," Adam says, "and hope he's still up for the rest of it when this is all over. Is it selfish to want him to wait? Is selfishness any way to start a relationship?" He thinks about Brad, how he's still not sure how they even got together. Brad always says that he just knew, that they were supposed to be together. Serendipity. Adam wishes he could believe in that. It would maybe be easier, even if it isn't really better.

"There's nothing selfish about self-actualization," Scarlett says. She fills up his wine glass from the box on the coffee table, appropriately pink and fruity. "Don't make me doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion, Lambert. I made you lead dancer," she says, and Adam laughs.

*

Just over the Nevada border and half way to Black Rock, Brad made them stop at an abandoned gas station so he could attempt to unbolt the old Coca-Cola sign from above the front window. Adam went behind the building to take a piss and only made an annoyed face when Brad followed him a moment later and started snapping pictures with the old canon manual focus camera circa 1986 that his father had given him.

"Why do you have to take pictures of everything?" Adam asked. He zipped his pants up and wiped his hands on his jeans.

"I couldn't get the sign down," Brad said. Click click with the camera.

"That's not an answer to the question I actually asked."

Brad let the camera drop from in front of his face and shrugged. "I just want to remember things. If I don't have proof, it feels like maybe events only happened in my mind."

"And you need proof of me taking a piss?"

"It's proof that you're not actually a robot or an alien. Robots don't have bladders and I'm pretty sure aliens piss like, moon dust or something. You piss, therefor you're human."

"But don't you ever just want to have an experience without documenting it? Just be like, totally in the moment?"

"Why can't I do both?"

Adam had about a hundred reasons why, but he knew none of them would convince Brad and this wasn't really the time or the place for it. Once they got to Burning Man, Brad would forget about making proof and make memories instead. Adam thought he should be proof enough, but he didn't want to say that out loud. He didn't think he'd like the response. He just stood there instead, and Brad snapped another picture of him looking like a rebel without a cause reject in his tank top and shades before Scarlett started honking the horn on her beat up old truck, shouting, "C'mon, bitches, I'm losing my buzz!" They weren't alone again until the next morning when they finally passed out in their tent, and by then Adam couldn't remember why he thought it was important in the first place.

*

The producers tell him he can talk to the press if he wants, he can make a statement and they're completely behind him, whatever he wants to do, but they also move him in with Kris after semi-finals because Kris is married and safe and they expect Kris to go home within a week or two, anyway. Adam doesn't hold it against them; they have a TV show to run and if he thinks about it too much, he'll start to wonder who complained and he'd really rather not know. It's a little awkward because Kris's roommate from semis is still there and everyone kind of knows what's going on, but no one will actually say anything about it except Alexis who tells him, "Oh, lame, he's totally married. I was hoping for a good sex scandal story to tell when I get booted!" So yeah, it's kind of awkward, but at least the scenery is nice.

Kris Allen, man. Adam doesn't think this kid is going home anytime soon. There's no way the housewives of America will want to stop getting Kris on their TVs every week. The guy could sing something truly shitatious, like Creed or something from the Jessica Simpson country oeuvre, but he'd still be beautiful so it really wouldn't matter. This is what he tells Kris after he totally bombs on 'All She Wants to Do Is Dance.' Normally he wouldn't say something like that because Kris is so fucking nice and the last thing Adam wants to do is make him feel awkward or whatever the way straight guys get sometimes, but Kris is sitting on his bed looking so beaten and puppy dog sad that Adam can't help himself.

He says, "It doesn't matter. I mean yes, it was a shitty song and the mix was completely fucked and the pit was like--well, I was pretty sure they replaced the crying tweens with zombies, but like really unmotivated zombies who not only didn't give a fuck about dancing, but also weren't even remotely interested in the consumption of brains. But anyway, so it wasn't your best, but it doesn't matter because you're gorgeous and Americans are shallow."

"You really think so?" Kris looks up, more hopeful puppy than sad puppy now, and Adam sighs a little because--distracting! Distracting, married, straight boys are just no fair to the Adams of the world, but as his mom always says, "Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you can't explore the menu." Adam is on a permanent diet of queer boys only. He tried the straight-but-curious type once and it made him feel like Veronica Mars walking down the driveway on the infamous morning after in her white party dress and bare feet, all mascara-black tears and complete trauma, saying, "I was roofied," and he never wants to feel like that again.

Adam unzips his boots and sets them carefully aside before lying back onto his bed, thinking, r-e-l-a-x. He could really use a joint right now. "Americans are definitely shallow," he says finally.

Kris laughs in a choked sort of way, like he's surprised to be laughing at all. Adam guesses he probably is--it was a really bad performance. "No, I meant--you really think I'm, you know?"

Adam smiles up at the ceiling, keeping his eyes closed. "Honey, you're definitely you know. If I didn't have a boyfriend, and you weren't married and straight, I would totally fuck you. But only to prove how you know you are, and not for my own selfish reasons, of course."

"You have a--you never said. That you have a boyfriend, I mean."

Adam sits up and looks at him, raises one eyebrow. "That's the part of that statement you're choosing to focus on?"

"No, I just." He rubs the back of his neck and looks over at Adam with his chin tilted down just so and Adam thinks, gorgeous and distracting. Maybe the producers are trying to fuck up his game, after all. Kris clasps his hands together and leans forward, elbows on his thighs. He's so fucking earnest, Adam can barely stand it. "You don't have to hide things like that. We all know you're gay and it's not a big deal."

That's not really true. It's a big deal to some people, Adam knows, but he's here to sing and to be his best self and he has more important things to worry about than people who'd rather pretend that gay is something that only happens in San Francisco and not in America's living rooms twice a week. But he knows Kris really means that it's not a big deal to him, and Adam can appreciate the sentiment.

"I don't have a boyfriend," Adam says. "Just a guy I'm dating. Or was dating, before the show, but I barely have time to put my makeup on in the morning, much less conduct an entire relationship right now, so it's just sort of in limbo or something. I don't know."

"To be fair," Kris says, "it takes you over an hour to get ready. That's like three blowjobs you're missing out on every day, right there. You gotta learn to prioritize, Adam. Eyeliner or blowjobs?"

"Kris Allen, you dirty bitch! You said blowjob. I'm going to tell Danny on you, and he won't invite you to sing gospel songs any more. Don't you know that every sperm is sacred? Blowjobs are a waste of God's gifts."

"Oh, please don't," Kris says, deadpan. "I would be really sad if I had to miss gospel song time with the Ghoulish Widower."

"Name calling!" Adam says. "I'm going to have to restrict your internet access. Those Entertainment Weekly kids are a bad influence."

Later, when they're both in bed and the lights are off and Adam is waiting impatiently for his brain to shut up so he can get some sleep, Kris says, "You really think I'll be okay tomorrow?"

"Truth time: yeah, tonight wasn't good for you. But you'll be fine. I really think so."

"Because I'm gorgeous?" Kris says. Adam can hear the grin in his voice.

"Because Scott was even worse. Somewhere in the world, the remaining members of Survivor are weeping."

*

Sometimes it seemed like the only time Adam felt really alive was when he was performing.

And it wasn't like the Zodiac Show was a big deal or anything, not out in the real world, but it was kind of a big deal to him because for a few hours a week, he got to be someone completely different; he got to be a fantasy person, this completely alien creature who was powerful and beautiful and never worried about his terrible skin or needing to lose weight or whether he'd make rent that month. It was just his voice inhabiting this golden, perfect creature, and none of the rest of that shit even mattered.

Brad was always insane on nights like that, meeting him backstage and dragging him to the nearest dark corner or closet, wherever he could find. It was a year before Black Rock and a year since they'd met, and it didn't even matter that Brad was his, officially and for as long as they could make it. It didn't matter that Brad said 'I love you' ten times a day and meant it, because even when Brad was dragging him into some foul abandoned closet that smelled like bleach and shoving aside a crusty mop that had hardened into full-on statue it was so old, just so he could get Adam alone, push up against him and suck the glitter off his throat--even then, it didn't matter because there was this dark spark in Adam's head, like a worm of uncertainty threading its way through his brain.

"God, Adam," Brad said, "you're so fucking ridiculous and I hate these fucking pants because I want you to be fucking me right now."

But then someone banged on the door, yelling, "I need the fucking bleach, assholes!" and Brad whined low in his throat and let Adam go, saying, "We'll finish this at home, bitch. And don't you dare take off that makeup."

By the time they got back to the apartment, though, Brad was too wasted to take off his own shoes much less finish anything, so Adam just put him to bed with a glass of water and three tylenol waiting for him on the bedside table for when he woke up at six in the morning with the inevitable hangover and locked himself in the bathroom to take off his makeup.

The bathroom was small and white with a truly hideous mauve ceramic sink, the old-fashioned stand-alone basin kind with absolutely no counter space to speak of. He filled it with cold water and sifted through all the crap in the milk crate they kept in the corner in lieu of actual cabinets until he found his cold cream makeup remover. The heavy false eyelashes were the first thing to go, peeled away carefully like glittering spiders across his cheeks. The cream went on cold and he sponged it away in even stripes, unpainting himself in pieces like a secret portrait, and when he was done he was himself again. Plain and nothing special, just himself, and he wished he could just always be performing. Everything was easier when he was someone else.

Brad was passed out across the bed like a starfish by the time Adam was finished, still in his club clothes and smudged makeup, bare feet weirdly vulnerable and delicate hanging off one side of the bed. He looked like he was living through a soft focus lens, features blurred together and so beautiful--he really was beautiful.

Adam wished he knew why that wasn't enough.

*

"It's not your fault," Kris says, sliding his arm around Allison's shoulders. She's the only one who's smaller than Kris, and from across the kitchen Adam smiles, thinking they make each other look like normal-sized human beings. "Disco sucks."

"The judges suck," Allison says. Adam can't say he disagrees.

"I have something that will cheer you up!" Adam says, spinning one of the kitchen chairs around and sliding onto it, resting his chin on the high back.

"Chair dancing?" Allison says. "That'll only cheer me up if you get more naked."

Kris raises an eyebrow like he's challenging Adam or something, like Adam is the kind of guy who'd pull a full-on Britney in the middle of the Idol Mansion kitchen--which, he kind of is, but the audience is too straight and underage for his taste. He rolls his eyes and says, "You little hussy. No chair dancing. Please! I need to lose at least fifteen pounds before I'm willing do the Full Monty thing."

"Hey now," Kris says, grinning. "No one said anything about the full monty. But the girl is sad. She almost got eliminated! I don't think a little show is too much to ask."

"Settle down now, children. We are getting way off track. Miss Scarlett brought me these," Adam says, holding up his deck of vintage Aleister Crowley tarot cards, "and I thought I could do some readings."

"I don't think that's a good idea, man," Danny says. He's leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed in front of his chest like he's afraid to come into the kitchen.

"You'd rather I put on a strip show for these harlots?" Adam says. Kris rolls his eyes and from behind Danny, Adam can hear Matt saying, "Someone's stripping? What's going on? I want to see!"

"Allen, this is okay with you?" Danny says, and Kris's knuckles turn white as he clenches his fist against the surface of the table. Adam can see him counting in his head, trying to be cool and calm and Adam thinks, Kris is pretty and sweet and kind and the best person Adam has ever met. Kris is the kind of guy who goes on trips to Africa and other impoverished, third world countries to build houses and dig irrigation ditches and provide AIDS relief, instead of going on vacation to tropical island paradises to exploit the native populations and enjoy pristine beaches. Kris likes: sweet tea, fly-fishing, plaid shirts that he somehow, against all odds, manages to look adorable in, and music. Kris dislikes: puppy killers, rapists, Ryan Seacrest's highlights, and assholes like Danny Gokey who pervert what Kris believes it means to be a Christian.

Kris ignores Danny and says, "Adam, I think you should do me first."

Adam says, "Hang on a minute, I need to savor this moment and lock it away in my memories forever. Kris Allen has verbally and out loud in front of all these witnesses declared his desire for me to do him." He winks at Allison and she giggles a little, saying, "Only if I get to watch!" Kris covers his face with his hands and looks at Adam from between his fingers, laughing and sliding down in his seat until Adam thinks he might actually fall off onto the floor, and by the time they calm down enough for Adam to do a reading, Danny is gone and Matt's standing by the center island looking half-intrigued and half-appalled.

Matt says, "Maybe you could do me after Allison? I mean, I'm not usually into that stuff, but if you're like an expert or something, it might be fun."

Kris starts laughing all over again, face in his hands on the table, and Adam says, "You're not really my type, Dollface, so how about I read your fortune instead?"

*

Adam doesn't believe in organized religion. He believes in God, kind of; he believes that everything has a purpose, anyway, and that people have their own unique energies that make them them, regardless of time or place or environment or whatever. Most people would call it a soul, but Adam prefers the word 'spirit.' A soul is something people lose and find and damn and bless; souls are for Buffy and dementors and Edward Cullen, not for actual real people, and Adam thinks the entire idea is basically bullshit. He heard this radio piece once on NPR about this preacher who was watching 20/20 or something one day, a segment about the genocide in Darfur, and he had this revelation that hell doesn't exist. Because if hell is real, then God is pointlessly cruel because all those murdered children in Africa were going to hell because they weren't Christians or whatever, and because Preacher Man couldn't stand to exist in a world where God is not love but fear, hell couldn't be real, QED.

Clearly, he'd never read the Old Testament.

The preacher ran a megachurch and had a television show and a sports car and was one of the most well-respected men in St. Louis. He was going to run for mayor but then he explained his revelation to his followers and got excommunicated and lost everything, because it turns out that some people need fear to motivate them. Being a good person just because you can be isn't enough. Those sorts of ideas make you a heretic.

Trying to explain this to Danny is utterly useless, but he's had two glasses of contraband wine and he feels like he wants to get in a fight. He was supposed to see Drake tonight but that didn't happen. Drake had a thing or plans with friends or something that just sounded so much like an excuse for "I don't feel like dealing with you tonight" that Adam stopped listening halfway through the phone call. He's supposed to be fucking his boy right now and instead he's stuck here watching something from the Bruce Willis Explodes Things collection, but unfortunately it's not 12 Monkeys which has both naked Bruce and mooning Brad in it. Not really Adam's type, either of them, but he can appreciate that a nice ass is a nice ass. He should be coming right about now, and instead he's here with Danny, the only other person lame enough to stay in who doesn't have to be in bed by eleven because it's a school night, trying to explain why the entire concept of a Christian hell with flames and torture and all that crap just doesn't make any sense.

"If you're a good person and do good things and help people your whole life, why should it matter what religion you are?" Adam says. "Jews don't believe in hell. Mormons don't believe in hell."

Danny doesn't even look at him, just says, "Let's just watch the movie, dude. We're never gonna agree on this."

"I'm just trying to understand your world view," Adam says. He finishes off the wine in his glass and sets it on the coffee table in front of him, pulling his feet up onto the couch and hugging his knees. He's being an asshole and he knows it, but Danny's pulled enough asshole moves that Adam doesn't feel too guilty about it. It's not the first time he and Danny have attempted this conversation, but this time Danny doesn't have his bible with him, open to Leviticus like Adam didn't grow up with Mormon friends who could probably recite the entire book by heart. Scarlett would tell him to let it go because he'll never change Danny's mind and it's a waste of energy and emotion even trying. Brad would just say fuck it and let things unfold as they're supposed to, that not every story needs conflict and resolution and people coming to terms with new and scary ideas. Some people aren't worth it. But Adam can't let it go. He can't get over the idea that he needs to make shit happen if he ever wants it to change, even if it's only Danny, even if Danny's tiny little mind isn't worth the effort. "I want to understand what makes you think you have the right to hate me because I'm not the same as you."

Danny leans against the back of the couch and sighs, takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. Adam likes him better this way. His face looks naked and vulnerable and open. Danny closes his eyes and says, "I don't hate you, dude. I just think. My pastor says that--"

"I don't care what your pastor says," Adam interrupts. "I want to know your thoughts on the matter. Don't hide behind other people's words, just be honest. Be better than someone else's dogma."

"Sometimes I don't even know what you're saying," Danny says, and slides his glasses back onto his face, boom, closed. "I don't hate you," he says again, "but I believe there's a way we should live our lives with Jesus always in our hearts. Anyone can be saved and forgiven, but they have to want that for themselves." He looks at Adam. "I don't care what religion you are, man. But I can't agree with the way you live your life."

"Because I'm a fag?" Adam says it casually, tossing his hair out of his eyes, and Danny winces at the word, mouth tightening into a thin white line across his face.

"Because Jesus has no part in it, and you don't want Him to be," Danny says, and suddenly Adam doesn't feel like fighting any more. The wine has made him kind of sleepy and he thinks about something Neil said to him once, when he was trying to get Adam to campaign against Prop 8 last fall. He said, "It's not enough to be an example by how you live your life. You have to be your best self. You can't just be as good as everyone else, you have to be better than them. Just look at Obama. It's not fair, it's just the way shit is." Adam still thinks that's true, and Danny is maybe too stupid to stop demanding that everyone be like him.

Danny is one person. He's just one guy, Adam thinks, and maybe one conversation won't change anyone's mind, but being his best self in front of 30 million people every week might. He says, "I'm sorry. I'm being a jerk. I was supposed to go out tonight and instead...well."

"Instead you're stuck here with the Ghoulish Widower?" Danny says with a laugh. Adam tries to say something like, "No one thinks of you like that" or "I never thought you were using your wife's death to get votes" (even though they totally do and Adam definitely thinks that), but Danny just shakes his head and says, "It's okay. I'm cool with it. I've made peace with everything that's gone down in the last year, you know? I didn't want to be the only one who remembered her, and now the whole world knows her name and how special she was, so. So if people wanna call me names, I'm okay with that."

Adam doesn't say anything for a long time, just watches Bruce Willis blow shit up on the giant plasma screen and tries to empty his mind. He thinks Danny is delusional and kind of mentally unbalanced, but he knows Danny means that shit, too, and really believes it. Sometimes intentions mean more than actions, and Adam thinks about Brad outside the rusted-out gas station with his camera heavy and black in his delicate hands, saying, "I just want to remember things."

"She seemed like a good person," Adam says finally. He doesn't say, "Better than you," but he's pretty sure Danny already knows that, anyway.

"She was the best person I ever knew," Danny says, and Adam thinks that Danny is still a douchebag and a homophobic asshole who hides behind his religion and needs some serious counseling, but he's not actually evil. Not completely, anyway.

*

Adam had been in love with Brad for a while before he actually said the words. It kind of felt like Adam had always been in love with Brad, before they met, like he'd just been killing time until Brad came along with this instant spirit-body-mind connection thing they had going on. The first night wasn't supposed to be anything and certainly not love, but Adam thought he kind of knew even then, like puzzle pieces lining up to complete the picture, which Adam liked to imagine looked like Mona Lisa's smirk. That bitch had secrets. She knew shit.

So he'd been in love with Brad for a long time before he said it, because he wanted it to be right and perfect and real, and not some stupid cliche. He wanted to make sure that Brad would say it back and mean it, because the whole one-sided unrequited thing really fucking sucked and he'd been careful this time, really very careful. He tried not to give all of himself away, but it was hard because Brad was so--something. Like a wave, like when he and Neil used to go down to the shore during storms and stand on top of the cement breakers to let the ocean rush over them in cold surges. And it was stupid, it was really fucking stupid because they could've gotten hurt or dragged off the breakers or just gotten sick from driving home in soaked clothes or whatever, but there was something kind of magical about it, too. Because he felt so small but so alive, like he was part of something so scary-big he couldn't even wrap his brain around it.

That's how Brad felt to him, this scary-big thing and when Brad looked at him and smiled so sweetly, like he had everything he ever wanted, Adam felt so weird and crazy that it couldn't be anything but full-on, true and for serious love. He was done. He was a Boyz II Men song. He was a Julia Roberts movie.

They were parked in the McDonald's parking lot with the windows open and a large box of fries dumped out into the paper bag between them in the backseat, and that's when Adam said it. Brad stopped chewing for a second with his mouth open and mashed french fries on his tongue before he swallowed quickly and said, "Shut up!" He rolled his eyes and reached for more fries.

"No, seriously. In the words of David Cassidy, I think I love you. Even though you eat with your mouth open and it's really kind of gross, by the way."

"You did not just quote that Four Weddings and A Funeral shit at me. And it's not gross. Everything I do is lovely and classy."

Adam didn't say anything, just stared down at his hands in his lap and thought about the ocean and the waves crashing over him until he couldn't hear anything but the overwhelming roar of it and Neil's shocked laughter. The silence stretched and stretched until it thinned down to nothing but the high pitched buzz of the fluorescent lights in the parking lot and the wail of a police siren in the distance, and then Brad snapped it with a started giggle.

"Oh shit!" he said. "You're serious."

Adam looked at him and smiled a little. "David Cassidy is serious business."

"David Cassidy should never be taken seriously by anyone," Brad said. He tilted his head to the side a little, reached across the space between them and stroked two fingers along the side of Adam's neck down, traced along his collarbone and back up again to wrap around the nape of Adam's neck, squeezing a little, like he was saying hello. "I'm not a serious person," Brad said. "I mean, I think we both know I'm ultra times ridiculous. But I'm serious about you. You make me feel--fuck, I don't even know. You make me feel crazy or something, like I can't even fucking comprehend the feeling because it's too big. And I've never been in love before, but I'm pretty sure this is what it feels like."

"I think I should fuck you now," Adam said, leaning forward to kiss him, licking the salt from Brad's lips and thinking he hated fries but nothing ever tasted so good as Brad's mouth right then.

"I think," Brad said, pulling away to stare up at him with dark eyes, mouth red and slick, "that that's the best thing you've said all night. Except for the part about how you totally love me," and Adam just smiled at him and said, "I totally do."

*

By the time there are only four of them left and only a month to go in the competition, Adam has reached a sort of Zen state about it all. He's tired in every way possible, and just feeling completely drained at all times, but it's not a bad feeling, exactly, because that means he doesn't have the energy to think about what's going on in the outside world, or really--what's not going on.

He doesn't have time to think about Brad or Drake or boys at all, and he feels empty in a good way. One thing at a time, he reminds himself. He has to be the best. Good isn't enough for him.

It's the Saturday after Matt gets eliminated and Adam can't sleep. The house feels empty with so many people gone, a hallowed-out husk with just the four of them rattling around inside, and it's a little spooky padding down the long staircase in his old sweats and a t-shirt with the big chandelier in the entry hall glowing with its faint light, like something out of a Kevin Williamson-era slasher movie. He finds Allison in the kitchen, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the stove eating ice cream out of the bucket in the warm pool of light from the oven lamp overhead. Adam grabs a spoon from the drawer next to the sink and slides down to sit next to her on the floor, digging into the bucket for some slightly-melted chocolate.

They don't say anything for a while, just eat ice cream and stare off into space, but finally Allison sets the bucket aside with a groan and leans her head against Adam's shoulder. "I'm so tired," she says.

"You should go to sleep, sweetie. It's way past your bedtime," Adam says, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She sighs a little.

She so quiet for so long that Adam thinks maybe she has gone to sleep right here on the kitchen floor, but then she says, "Have you ever been in love?"

"Once. Yeah, I was in love once. But it didn't work out." He shrugs a little. He's not sure he can explain his relationship with Brad to a sixteen-year-old girl who's never been on a date. She reminds him of himself at that age, awkward and lost and not really sure of who he was even if he knew exactly who he wanted to be.

"Was it amazing?" she says. "I think it's gotta be amazing. Like fireworks and always feeling like you're about to throw up, but in a good way."

Adam laughs. "It's kind of like that. Some parts are ultra-amazing. Some parts are just confusing and sad, and some parts really hurt."

"Like Blair and Chuck."

"Less underage drinking and sex and Wall Street intrigue, but yeah, kind of. People are complicated, kid. Just because you fall in love with someone doesn't mean everything'll work out. It just means you work harder at trying to make it."

"Am I a freak, Adam? I don't even want a boyfriend. Is that--is there something wrong with me?"

Adam squeezes her shoulders a little. "Boyfriends are seriously overrated," he says. "Give yourself some time. Or wait a few years until you're a famous rock goddess and like, the Jonas Brother of your choice will be begging you for dates."

"Gross," she says. "They can't even sing!"

"Talent only matters in singing competitions," Adam says. "The real world just wants you to look pretty and say the right things. But if you ever pull a Jordin Sparks on national television, I will disown you. Not everyone wants to be a slut," Adam says in a high-pitched, shrill voice. "Bitch, please."

Allison makes a face. "No Jonases, and no purity rings. I think I just want like... a normal boy. Someone who likes me for me, you know?"

Adam knows. He's been wanting a boy who likes him for him, just the way he is, since he was ten years old, running around his parents' house in the cape he refused to take off except to go to school. Acceptance. It's sad that it's so fucking rare. "Everyone wants that, honey. Which boys do you think are cute?" He pulls back to look at her. "Or girls. Who do you like?"

She looks at him a little slyly, but she's blushing, too, when she says, "Kris is pretty cute."

"Kris is way dreamy," Adam says. "And he has a wife."

"We're just looking though," Allison says. "This is fantasy land."

In Adam's fantasy land, Kris is single and an adorably slutty bottom; in Adam's fantasy land, they have fucked in every room on every surface in the mansion and Kris is only decent at blowjobs, but they put in plenty of practice because he's very earnest about his desire to improve his skill set. In Adam's fantasy land, Kris tastes like sunshine and magic and he's totally and madly in love with Adam.

The gaudy grandfather clock in the front hall chimes three times, and Adam says, "Okay girl, it's time to go to sleep. We'll talk about cute boys later, when Danny is around so we can make him squirm a little." He gets to his feet and holds out his hands for her, pulling her up and pushing her gently in the direction of her room, but she turns back and gives him a tight hug instead, saying a quick, "Thanks," into his chest.

*

When he and Brad broke up, well, it sucked. They didn't have some big blow out fight that would've been way dramatic but also maybe let Adam feel some emotion other than the sadness and inadequacy he couldn't seem to shake off. They had just gotten back from Black Rock and Adam felt like he could do anything if he wanted it bad enough; he felt like he'd discovered the simplest of secrets, that if he wanted something badly enough he'd have to go for it and stop waiting for his destiny to unfold like he was trapped inside some David Lynch movie about the seedy underbelly of Hollywood and the backwards-talking midgets that controlled everything through a secret Batphone or whatever. It wasn't some mystic revelation from God or something, just simple and obvious logic that somehow took eight years of fucking around Hollywood and a week-long psychedelic adventure for him to realize.

He felt free and he knew what he was going to do and he thought he had a really good chance at succeeding, too. He felt free and then Brad said, "I love you, but I'm not in love with the person you're becoming" and freedom didn't seem so magical any more.

They're still friends and they still text and email and talk and all that, but Adam has Drake now, kind of, or he did before Idol, anyway. He has Drake and the competition and he finally feels like he's doing something worthwhile and important and bigger than himself. Kris breathes out in a loud sigh, rolls over in his bed to face Adam across the three feet of carpet between them, says, "But it feels like something's still missing."

"Not--missing, exactly. Just maybe a little bit off. Not quite right. I like Drake, but it doesn't feel real or something. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, yeah it does. Nothing feels real here. I don't know if it's Idol or being so far from home or what. I go downstairs in the mornings for breakfast and it's like every time, I'm surprised that Katy isn't there drinking coffee and reading the newspaper like she always does. It's such a small thing, but it's so surreal." He laughs softly. "I hardly even got to be married before, and this whole experience is like that Talking Heads song--is this my beautiful wife? I honestly can't tell any more. Everything's inside out."

"Alice through the looking glass, chasing the white rabbit," Adam says.

Kris laughs a little, but it's not really a happy sound. "Sometimes it's hard to remember what's so great about that damned rabbit anyway."

"Money, groupies, fabulous outfits, and the chance to create music that people might actually want to listen to."

"You had me at 'fabulous outfits,'" Kris says. He's quiet for a moment and Adam thinks maybe they're done talking for the night, but then Kris says, "I like Drake. He seems like a good guy. Like he'd treat you right."

"He would, I think," Adam says. "But, I don't know. There's just something..."

"He's not Brad," Kris says, not in a good way or a bad way, just a statement of fact. Drake is definitely not Brad. And maybe that's the problem, but it's also kind of the solution, too, because Adam's not sure he could handle another Brad right now. He wants true love, but he has to get through Rock Week first. One thing at a time.

"I don't know if I want to feel like that again," Adam says. "It's kind of scary. That sort of all-encompassing feeling, like you'd die without them and you don't know who you are if it's not a part of them? Do you--is that how it is with Katy?"

Kris doesn't answer the question. "You're not dead, though, and I'd say you have a pretty strong sense of self. I'm no shrink, but you seem to know who you are without him, just fine."

Adam says, "Maybe I just put on a good show," but he lies awake for a long while after Kris has settled into sleep, thinking about that. He remembers what Scarlett said about self-actualization never being selfish, and he's sort of starting to believe her. He's been looking for this one true love thing for a long time, he thinks, but maybe he's more of an Alice than he thought. Because Kris is right: sometimes it's hard to remember what's so great about that damned white rabbit in the first place, especially when it's kind of breaking your heart.

*

Allison getting eliminated is hard and awful, even if Adam kind of knew it was coming. Adam is supposed to go out with Drake and his friends that night after their farewell dinner with the kid, but Kris finds him in the bathroom they share now between their new, separate rooms and says, "Put down the eyeliner. We have drinking to do."

They're not supposed to have alcohol in the mansion, but Kris is sitting on the floor in front of his bed pouring shots from a porno-huge bottle of tequila, a salt shaker that looks like it was stolen from the Applebees they were just at for Allison's dinner and a plastic baggie of cut-up limes on a plate beside him. "I hate tequila," Adam says, but he sits down across from Kris with the shot glasses between them, watches Kris set the bottle aside and do the whole lame tequila ritual that Adam is pretty sure frat boys invented to torture gay boys like him, with all the licking of body parts and the sucking at the end. Kris licks and salts his left wrist before passing the salt to Adam and picking up his shot glass.

Adam salts himself obediently even though it makes him feel like someone's dinner--which on some occasions, like the kind involving body shots and hot guys, is fine--but doing himself is just kind of weird, especially with Kris watching him. Kris is a hot guy but he doesn't count; Kris has a wife who probably smuggled the tequila into the mansion in the first place, so he really doesn't count. Keep telling yourself that, bitch, he thinks to himself, and picks up his shot glass.

"To Allison?" Adam says.

"To the final two," Kris says, and takes his shot.

"We're not there yet," Adam says, but he takes his shot anyway and tequila is just as disgusting as he remembered, but it settles warm in his belly and after four more shots, he's pretty sure he'll never taste anything again, so it's not that bad. The lime really does help.

They're both leaving ass-early in the morning for their hometown visits, and Danny is already gone, straight to the airport after dinner. It's just them in the mansion, the two of them and the biggest bottle of tequila in possibly the history of the world, or at least California. His phone buzzes with text after text from Scarlett and Brad and Drake, but Adam just shuts it off and doesn't read the messages. This feels important right now, this thing with Kris. Kris doesn't ask for things. He doesn't need Adam's help and he never tries to take the way some of the others did, so staying here and getting smashed with this guy who's not like anyone Adam knows or would ever have thought to get to know--it seems important. Kris asked.

"I have a plan," Kris says, his words slow and heavy and a little rough, like sap sliding across bark. Not that Adam has ever seen sap sliding across bark, but he's pretty sure that happens. He saw a movie in his seventh grade biology class about how they sap rubber trees and turn it into tires and shit like that, and then later, when he was in high school, he watched Indochine without the subtitles, so he's still not sure what the movie was about but there was a really hot guy, and the rubber trees. It's just like that.

"Don't you want to hear my plan?" Kris says, poking Adam in the ribs with a bare toe. Adam's lying on his back on the floor, too many shots of tequila settling in his throat and the sharp taste of lime on his tongue, and his voice is going to be wrecked tomorrow but he can't really make himself care. He feels good but he's sad, too, because Allison is his girl and someone has to go home every week, but he was kind of hoping it wouldn't be her after the shit Danny laid down. He turns his head to look at Kris, who is beautiful and sincere and good, and if Kris goes home next week, Adam's faith in karma and truth and beauty will be totally fucking shot. He can admit it now that he's drunk: he really kind of hates Danny Gokey. And he really kind of loves Kris.

"It better be a good plan," Adam says. "Because Danny pretty much shit--shat?--shitted--on the judges' faces last night and they were like, A for effort! You get a gold star!" Adam frowns. "When they do shit like that, how are we supposed to know if we're any good?"

"You just do, because you are," Kris says. "You're not singing for them, right? Anyway, my plan. It's awesome. It's really awesome. Because what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna win. I decided." He nods emphatically.

"That's not really a plan." Adam feels the need to point this out. "As far as like, actual plans go. It's more of a statement."

"If you build it, they will come," Kris explains. Adam frowns and rolls his head to the side to get a better look at Kris, slumped against the foot of the bed all pretty and rumpled and so unfairly straight and married.

"I think I need more tequila to understand the plan," Adam says. "And that is saying something, because I can't feel my teeth."

"It's like what they say in what I think is probably one of the top five movies of all time, Field of Dreams. If you build it--"

"Wait wait wait. Field of Dreams can't be one of your favorite movies because frankly my dear, it sucks balls."

"Is that a bad thing now?" Kris says. "Everyone likes having their balls sucked."

"No more balls talking. Let's ignore your terrible taste in movies right now and concentrate on the thing. The plan. If you build it, blah blah."

Kris nods. "Right, see. It's about believing in yourself. If you believe enough, it's like a... some kind of magic. And that's how I'm going to win American Idol." He grins. "I'm just gonna pretend to be Adam Lambert for three minutes."

Adam smiles and his lips feel like they might stretch right off his face. He says, "You're gonna borrow my magic alien amulet of Oscar Wilde?" Adam pushes himself into a sitting position, eyes wide. He holds one finger up and says, "Wait, wait. I don't have an amulet thingy, but we should, yes."

"What?" Kris says, but Adam is already on his feet, stumbling towards the bathroom. Kris says, "Oh, hey, are you puking now?" but Adam just ignores him and sifts through the bottles and tubes and pots of product on the counter until he finds what he's looking for. He shuffles back into the room, holding the bottle of nail polish in one fist, drops to his knees in front of Kris and grabs his hand, spreading the fingers out on Adam's knee.

"Just hold still," Adam says, biting his lip as he unscrews the top of the polish. "I could do this in my sleep, don't worry. And then, see, you'll have some glam magic, to like remind you to have faith in your own awesomeness and stuff."

"Maybe just one finger," Kris says, watching as Adam pulls the brush out of the bottle, blue-black polish shining wetly on the tip. "I can't take all your magic, or I'll end up in the finale with Danny." He makes a face. "America deserves better than that, Adam. We can't let them be masochistic like that."

"Just the thumb," Adam says, painting over Kris's nail with practiced strokes. It only takes three swipes of the brush before Kris's nail is covered. Adam lifts Kris's hand by the wrist and blows on the nail until it's dry enough. It's a bit lighter than he'd usually go for and he should really do another coat, but Adam thinks it will be enough for Kris to pull off his Kermit the Frog believe-in-yourself plan. It's not a bad plan, actually, Adam thinks. It's kind of the one Adam's been operating on the entire season. Since Burning Man.

He still thinks Field of Dreams is a shitty movie, though. Kevin Costner doesn't even get naked in it.

Kris's hand twitches a little in Adam's grasp, and then he leans forward and presses a soft, tequila-wet kiss to Adam's mouth. Adam tastes lime and a little bit of salt before Kris pulls away, staring at his thumb and grinning. "It's all gonna work out just the way we planned it," Kris says, brushing his index finger across the slick surface of his newly-painted nail. "You'll see. It's gonna be amazing. We just gotta have faith."

*

Faith isn't something Adam is good at. It's never really worked out for him in the past, but there's something about Kris that makes him want to believe that everything could work out okay.

He doesn't get much time to spend at home on his hometown visit, but the last night he's there his brother and his father come over to his mom's house and they order in Chinese and get to have a real meal without cameras tracking their every move for the first time in almost four months. It feels amazing and lovely and warm, just being with these people. He rubs at his thumbnail, rough against the pad of his finger with no polish on it, and he knows somewhere in Arkansas, Kris is probably with his family, doing the same thing.

He was a little worried when his parents split up, but he's not any more. They're still best friends and Adam thinks they still love each other. Just because they're not married any more doesn't mean they're not still family. He doesn't think it's possible to let go of someone you loved that much once upon a time; and maybe he's been too hard on himself about the whole Brad situation, because he loved Brad, loves him, was in love with him in that all-encompassing, kind of scary way, so it's okay to maybe want to hang onto a little of that. They won't get back together because Brad's kind of right about them and that it doesn't work without some sort of balance, but it's okay if Adam's not over it, he thinks. He doesn't have to be over it and move on and keep denying how crazy-awesome-terrible-wonderful it all was. He thinks maybe that's just how first loves are.

It's late by the time his dad leaves, and his mom goes up to bed pretty soon after, saying, "Now Neil, don't keep your brother up too late. He has an early flight tomorrow and then he has to win American Idol. Be good."

As soon as she disappears up the stairs to her bedroom, Neil looks him over with narrowed eyes and says, "You look like shit." His eyes flick to the polishless nail that Adam can't seem to stop touching. "So, are you in love with him?"

"I'm not in love with anyone," Adam says carefully. He grabs one of his mom's decorative needlepoint pillows and wraps his arms around it to stop the fidgeting. Neil knows him too well, and that always gives him away.

"Well, you're obviously not in love with Drake, or you'd have just said so," Neil says. "If you throw the competition for Kris Allen, I will lose all respect for you as a glittery alien. You can't give up on your dream of world domination just because your opponent greatly resembles a puppy riding a unicorn filled with kittens, okay? That is not acceptable. There is no crying in American Idol."

"A unicorn filled with kittens?" Adam says. "I don't think I want to know."

"Just don't be an asshole, Adam. Don't be that guy."

"I'm not that guy," Adam says. He squeezes the pillow a little tighter, feeling the stitching drag roughly across the thin skin on the insides of his wrists. "I'm maybe... I do love him. But not like that. Not like with Brad. I don't even know if I can feel like that again. Or if I'd want to, you know?"

"Not really," Neil says, "since you got all the good genes and the only way I can get a date now is to pimp you out."

"I didn't fall in love until I was older than you are now," Adam says. "I did get the good genes, though." He sighs. "Don't hate me because I'm fabulous."

Neil snorts and stands up, checking his cell for the time. "I should jet. Give me a hug and just. Just promise me you're not going to get your heart broken again, because I hate having to be the strong one when you're all pathetic and mopey over some stupid boy who clearly doesn't understand your worth."

Adam does as he's told and Neil squeezes a little too hard. "Everything's going to work out the way it's meant to," Adam says, and he almost believes it, too.

He's a little in love with Kris, but it's an entirely different sort of love than the Brad thing, which was physical and emotional and like some undeniable force he had to bend beneath or break. Kris gets him, though. Kris looks at him and sees Adam; just Adam, and not who he wishes Adam could be, or all the ways he thinks Adam should change to become someone else. Kris just sees a person who is worthy of love and praise and faith. And it's not like Adam thinks he's special or anything, because he knows that's just how Kris is--accepting. He takes people for who they are whether he likes them or not, and Adam is a little in love with the idea of that.

He's in love with the way Kris sees him and when he looks in the mirror now, he thinks maybe he's starting to see it, too.

*

When they met, it wasn't supposed to be anything.

It was some random house party in the Valley and he'd seen Brad before because everyone knew everyone else and it was hard to miss someone like Brad, who always acted like he was too cool to bother acknowledging you and expected everyone to already know who he was. Which was why it was pretty surprising when he sat down next to Adam on one of the uncomfortable pool loungers scattered around the patio, the gauzy pink and purple fairy wings attached to his bare back floating in the breeze, and said, "Hey there, Dollface," and lit a joint.

They watched the skater guys take runs around the rim of the empty pool for a while, passing the joint back and forth until Brad said, "I've seen you around before and I just got dumped for a pregnant teenage girl, so I was thinking you should fuck me. It would be the polite thing to do in my time of need."

Adam took a last drag off the joint and pinched it out between his fingers, holding the smoke in his throat for a long moment before exhaling in Brad's face. He said, "Well, I wouldn't want you to think I'm rude," and that's how they ended up hijacking an empty bedroom with a white wicker daybead covered in a patchwork quilt and half-finished knitting projects scattered on every available surface, Brad riding him with those stupid fucking wings still on, fluttering out behind him in the breeze from the ceiling fan. It should've been completely ridiculous and maybe it was the pot or the vodka martinis before the pot, but it was kind of beautiful instead. Brad was kind of beautiful, especially when he was biting his lip and digging his nails into Adam's chest and coming without even touching himself. It was all kind of beautiful.

"Do you even know my name?" Adam said after, lying on the scratchy patchwork quilt, passing another joint back and forth.

Brad took a hit, leaned in close to lick his way into Adam's mouth, hot acrid smoke drifting between them. "No," Brad said, smiling slow and pretty, holding the joint to Adam's lips for his turn. "But I will. Someday, I'm gonna know all your secrets."

It wasn't supposed to be anything, just a meaningless hook-up at a random party, but Adam was pretty sure he didn't give a fuck about 'supposed tos,' and then Brad was kissing him again, languid and hot and perfect, and Adam forgot to think at all.

*

In the desert, everything finally started to make sense, but standing backstage with Kris before their last official finale performance of the night, the backs of their hands brushing against each other as production assistants check them over and give them the final go ahead--that's when it finally clicks. Adam slides his fingers around Kris's hand and squeezes, says, "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm just trying to absorb, you know? Just take it all in and really be present and here in the experience. This is so insane. I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life."

"You know," Adam says, grinning and swinging their clasped hands a little, back and forth, "some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this."

"That magic rainbow is on the horizon," Kris says. "It's, um. It's inside your heaven? I'm pretty sure that's where they're keeping magic rainbows these days."

"That sounds kinky," Adam says. He lets go of Kris's hand and straightens his jacket, takes a deep breath. They're about to sing their last real song on this stage, with freaking Queen backing them up and it's going to be amazing, it's going to be brilliant. He knows that whatever happens, people will be talking about this the rest of the week, watching the performances back and analyzing the results and trying to say that the voting was some sort of referendum on social issues whichever way it goes, but Adam can't make himself care about any of that. He can't be bothered with other people's expectations tonight. He just wants to be present in this moment, like Kris said, and live the experience to its fullest.

At Burning Man, he watched the sun rise, baked out of his mind on shrooms, looked up at the sky and had a revelation about his life that wasn't anything special or anything his mom hadn't told him a hundred times before: that he was unhappy and stagnant and he needed to get his shit together and start living life instead of letting it passively happen to him. He watched the Burning Man burn with Brad pressed against him, their skin sticking together with sweat and sand in the hot dry air of the Nevada desert, and he thought he'd never felt so perfectly alive.

Brad was crying a little, perfect china dolls tears washing away the dirt from his face in streaks and Adam said, "What's wrong?"

"It just feels like the end of something," Brad said, and that didn't make sense to Adam because fire represented destruction but it meant change, too; it could turn the world upside down, and that was a form of creation. A new beginning, clean and free and wild, the way he feels when he's performing and the way he feels now, only this time he wants to be the one turning the world upside down.

"I love you," Adam says as PAs rush around them, performing last minute whatevers that PAs are always rushing around doing.

"I know," Kris says. He rubs his index finger over his thumbnail where the polish has mostly chipped off and smiles. "I love you, too."

And then it's time to start the show.