525,600 Minutes (How About Love)
Title: 525,600 Minutes (How About Love)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Genre: Angst
Summary: One year apart may be just what they need to save their failing marriage.
Notes: Written for Kradamadess.
How do you measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter and strife?
In five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year in the life?
He’s in Ethiopia when it happens.
He’s sitting on a worn mat, inside a rundown classroom, trying not to squirm too much in his seat as large beads of sweat drip down the back of his neck and under his thin white t-shirt. It’s unbearably hot, and the one small fan they have has puttered out again, because the power has gone out and the backup generator is out of gas. The kids seem unaffected, and actually seem more energetic now than they were an hour ago.
The kids range in age from six to thirteen, and they all look up at Kris with bright, hopeful eyes. After two months of convincing the administration at UNICEF that no it’s not a photo op or publicity stunt, and yes he’d like to stay and work for a year or more, Kris finally feels like he might be able to affect some small change, in all the ways he used to do before American Idol came along. Now, instead of sweeping in and out of villages and towns with cameras and media escorts, Kris is able to settle in and get to know the people he’s helping. On days like this, Kris is able to forget that he has a sprawling house in the Hollywood Hills, a wall full of trophies and plaques, and a husband who is only able to tolerate him after two bottles of wine.
He hasn’t let himself think about Adam for a while now. He needs time, to focus on something else, to sort out his thoughts, to figure out what he wants. (He won’t admit that thinking about Adam makes him too sad, too lonely, too insecure.)
He doesn’t hate Adam. He loves Adam, with all of his heart. And his misses Adam, so much that sometimes, it keeps him up at night. They haven’t spoken for two months now, and that’s the longest they have ever gone, and that includes the years before they got together. During all of those moments when he and Adam were staring each other down, (or worse, pretending the other wasn’t even there) he never thought that he would actually miss being with Adam. But he does, and so right now, the work, the heat, and the smiles on the children’s faces are the only things that are keeping him from curling up on the ground and squeezing his eyes shut tight.
The kids are all lined up in neat little rows now; they have been practicing a “special concert” just for Kris, and he thinks it’s taken all of their effort to rehearse and keep it all a secret. But they have, and now their moment has come, and Kris can see how anxious and nervous they are.
Another bead of sweat slides down Kris’s back. He smiles his most reassuring smile.
The kids sing a wonderfully off-key version of Whataya Want From Me. Kris keeps smiling, and silently wonders if this is some sort of joke, and if he actually is on camera.
~::~
People always assume that, when a relationship falls apart, it’s because someone was cheating.
Adam isn’t sure what offends him more these days; the fact that people think that either of them are actually capable of cheating, or the fact that they always assume he was the one stepping out on Kris.
It would be less offensive if it were just the fucking paparazzi. But it’s not. Several of his so-called friends have made off-handed comments, eluding to the idea that some torrid affair is what caused the rift between him and Kris. People want it to be one, big, dramatic thing, when in reality, it’s a million little things, that became something too big for either of them to handle.
Adam isn’t sure when, or how, or why it happened, it just did, and it was easier to let it go than to fight to hold on.
His friends don’t understand why he didn’t fight harder for it. They don’t understand why he still wears his wedding ring. They don’t understand that just because Kris is half a world away, and just because Adam is writing songs about endings and heartbreak, that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.
Sometimes he still pours coffee in two mugs in the morning, which is strange, because toward the end, he’d stopped getting Kris’s coffee for him.
The first time he does it, he stares down at the second cup for a full minute, trying to process why he’d done it now, when he should have done it a month ago when Kris was still inside the house (but not talking to Adam).
The fifth time he does it, he pours out the coffee, washes Kris’s red Arkansas mug, and puts it in a back closet.
If it’s out of reach, he won’t even think about it.
~::~
Kris hasn’t written music in a very long time.
In those weeks before he made the decision to leave, he’d been too run down, too tired, too upset by the unexpected twist that his life had taken. Since he’s been here in Ethiopia, he hasn’t had much time to focus on anything but his work.
In truth, he knows that opening up his mind to write down words and melody means opening his heart to feelings he’d rather not feel, and memories he’d rather not re-live.
It’s been nearly six months since he got on a plane in Los Angeles, and ten months since he’s written a song.
The words come to him one night while he’s sitting in a small cafe on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. He’s watching the sunset, marveling in the spectacular array of colors that paint the sky, and suddenly all he can think about is Adam, and wonder if he is happy, if he is miserable, if he’s moved on, or if he is watching the sky, and wondering about Kris.
The lyrics flow out of him faster than he can write them. He jots them on a napkin, and then he buys a postcard, and writes the lyrics on that instead. He addresses it to Adam, writes their home address, and the next morning, he stares at it for ten minutes before dropping it into a mail slot at the post office.
He does it three more times over the next several weeks, until the song is complete, and the lyrics are home.
~::~
Adam stirs awake as the plane begins its decent into LAX.
He loves New York, but he’s glad to be back, even if it means coming home to an empty house.
It’s the total silence that unsettles him. The house is large, and cold, and now that it’s just him, Adam feels like it’s wasted space.
He carries his bags up to his bedroom, drops them on the floor with a thud, and collapses onto the middle of his bed. He throws an arm over his eyes to block the light, and sighs heavily.
When did he start thinking of it as his bed, and not their bed?
He’s not sure he wants to know.
~::~
Adam wakes up the next morning fully clothed, with a kink in his neck from sleeping on one too many pillows. He takes a shower, calls his mom, answers a few emails, and goes through his mail.
The postcard is a photo of a gazelle and a baboon, superimposed over a photo of a lush green mountain range. The back of the card is covered with words, written in Kris’s long, neat handwriting. Adam puts down the card without reading it, and rubs his face with his hand. He knows he needs to read it, knows he should be happy to hear from Kris, but he’s so fucking scared of what the card says. He doesn’t want to know that Kris is gone for good, that he isn’t coming home again. He grabs his phone, texts Brad and Danielle, and paces around the kitchen, his heart in his throat.
He remembers the day Kris left like it was yesterday. Kris could barely look at him, and Adam had been so full of anger back then that he’d barely listened to what his husband had to say. Kris had muttered words like, exhausted, and frustrated, and so Adam had let him leave, without really hearing where he was going, or how long he’d be gone. And maybe that was the root of their problem. In the end, they’d stopped listening to each other.
Brad and Danielle arrive in a flurry of nervous chatter and armed with two bottles of wine and a bottle of tequila. Adam makes Danielle read the card first, because he’s a coward, but as soon as she tells him its a song, he grabs the card out of her hand and reads.
He reads the words over and over, until they blur together, until the lines are imprinted in his mind.
He keeps the postcard on the table next to their bed.
Trying to remember what it was I said you had done.
Really doesn’t matter, cause you’re still my only one.
Things go wrong, things go wrong.
I know that love can sometimes change;
But in my heart I feel the same.
Don’t be so quick to say we’re through;
Things go wrong. But I still love you.
~::~
Kris tries very hard not to think about everything that will happen once he lands in Los Angeles.
In the year since he walked out on Adam, and away from their life, he has managed to find a peace within himself that he thought he’d lost. He’s afraid that returning here will mean losing that peace, will mean losing a part of himself again.
But Adam is a part of him too. And Kris is too stubborn, too in love, and perhaps too stupid to let him go.
The Santa Ana winds blow hot and dry, making his eyes sting, making his throat dry.
He swallows hard, and lays a shaky palm against the faded brown front door that stands before him. He wonders if Adam is on the other side of the door. He wonders if Adam will be happy to see him. He wonders if this is still his home.
He wonders if his key will still open the door.
Kris pulls his hand from the door, and digs the key out of his front pocket. He takes a deep breath, straightens his shoulders, and slowly slides the key into the lock. He turns the key, hears the soft click of the lock giving way, and lets out the breath he’s been holding since the wheels of his plane hit the LA tarmac.
The house is silent and still. He places his bag by the door, and walks slowly down the narrow hallway, fingers dancing lightly over the uneven surface of the wall.
It’s strange, he thinks, that everything looks the same, and yet so unfamiliar. As he enters the kitchen, he allows himself to remember all of the small moments that fill this space: Adam trying (and failing) to make a birthday cake for Alisan; he and Adam working so hard to make Thanksgiving dinner their first year in this house; both of them poking skeptically at the frozen wedding cake on their one year anniversary; the cold tile on the kitchen counter digging into his back the night they’d christened the kitchen (and back patio); the nights Kris waited alone for Adam to come home; the morning Adam told him that their adoption request had been denied; the night Kris lied to Adam about his contract negotiations with Jive; the days of heavy silence; the night Kris told Adam that he was leaving.
The moments merge together, becoming one long, thin line that represents the life that they share together.
Before he left, he could only see the things that were tearing them apart. A single note in a cacophony of sound.
He runs his palm over the tile on the kitchen counter, and closes his eyes.
Their harmony is there waiting.
~::~
Adam wonders sometimes, how his life would be if Kris had decided to stay.
Toward the end, their words and actions had been borne of pettiness and bitterness; the result of too little communication and sleep, too much stress and misunderstanding.
He thinks that if Kris had stayed, it would have only gotten worse. There would have been lawyers, and childish press statements, and a reluctant division of property, and it would have consumed their lives, and decimated their relationship.
Now there is just absence, and sadness, and regret, and longing. There’s love, Adam is sure, because Kris found a way to tell Adam more on a set of silly postcards than he had ever been able to say in person.
Still. Adam would give anything to have Kris back. He’s dying to hear the melody that accompanies the words that are scrawled across those damn cards.
The air in the house feels different.
Adam can feel it the moment he walks in. The silence feels less...permanent.
He walks into the kitchen, and sees a half-empty coffee mug on the counter that he knows isn’t his. He walks back down the hall, and sees a pair of beat up sneakers by the front door. Anxious, tentative hope swells in him as he walks up the stairs, slowly, deliberately, his hand gripping the railing, his feet blindly finding each step by muscle memory alone. Adam closes his eyes, and wraps a shaky hand around the door handle that leads to their bedroom. The door opens with a slow, low creak.
Kris is curled on top of the comforter, fast asleep. Adam slips into the room, and quietly strips off his jacket and jewelry, and toes out of his shoes. He crawls up onto the bed, lays on his side, and silently studies Kris’s sleeping face until his own eyes grow heavy and slip closed.
When he next opens his eyes, Kris is awake, and looking at him, his gaze soft.
They lay like that, facing one another, silence stretching comfortably between them, for several minutes. Adam is afraid to move, to speak, to break the magic of the moment. He’s afraid to blink, afraid that he’s dreaming, hallucinating, wishing too hard. More minutes pass, and then Kris takes a deep breath, reaches across the space between them, extends trembling fingers, and traces a long line down Adam’s cheek. Adam doesn’t blink, doesn’t dare breathe. The rough, calloused fingers run along every curve and crevice on his face, then slide down his neck. He feels a warm hand cover his chest, over his heart.
“You came home,” Adam whispers roughly.
“Yes,” Kris whispers in reply.
Adam places a hand over the one Kris still has on his heart.
“You wrote me a song.”
“It needs a melody.”
“Okay,” Adam smiles, and then, “It’s late. Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Kris grins.
~::~
One Year Later.
Kris stretches out on the sprawling grass, his arms crossed under his head. He can feel the dampness from the ground seeping into his shirt and jeans, but can’t bring himself to mind. Above him, the sky is laid out like an endless sparkling canopy. He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. The silence of the very late night envelopes him.
The past year has been the most exhausting, most trying, most difficult, most rewarding year of his life. He and Adam have worked hard to rebuild their marriage, while still working on their respective lives and careers. There were moments, not many, but enough, when it seemed that they wouldn’t make it; that the only way to fix it was to walk away.
It was only when they both came to accept that they would never be what they once were, that they were now both less and more that they were able to move forward.
He hears the faint click of the patio door closing, and then the soft crunch of grass under Adam’s feet as he approaches.
“The grass is wet,” Adam says, as he sinks to his knees at Kris’s side. Kris opens his eyes long enough to acknowledge Adam, then lets them slip closed again. Adam sighs, and stretches out next to Kris.
“There are so many stars tonight,” Adam says after a long moment. His voice is filled with an unspoiled wonder that Kris has missed terribly. He opens his eyes, and turns his head. Adam is gazing up at the sky, his mouth turned up slightly, his eyes bright and wide. He blinks, and turns his head to look at Kris.
“I love you,” Kris whispers.
They turn toward the sky again. Adam reaches for Kris’s hand. Their fingers tangle together. Kris closes his eyes.
“I love you too,” Adam whispers.
Playlist:
Seasons of Love, Broadway Cast of Rent
January Hymn, by The Decemberists
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over, by Jeff Buckley
Long Way Round, by Stereophonics
Dearest, by The Black Keys
Postcards From Far Away, by Coldplay
Things Go Wrong, by Chris Isaak
Run, by Snow Patrol
It Wouldn’t Be The Same Without You, by Chris Isaak
Stay (Faraway, So Close), by U2
You Belong To Me, by Dean Martin
Something to Talk About, by Badly Drawn Boy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Genre: Angst
Summary: One year apart may be just what they need to save their failing marriage.
Notes: Written for Kradamadess.
How do you measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter and strife?
In five hundred twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes, how do you measure a year in the life?
He’s in Ethiopia when it happens.
He’s sitting on a worn mat, inside a rundown classroom, trying not to squirm too much in his seat as large beads of sweat drip down the back of his neck and under his thin white t-shirt. It’s unbearably hot, and the one small fan they have has puttered out again, because the power has gone out and the backup generator is out of gas. The kids seem unaffected, and actually seem more energetic now than they were an hour ago.
The kids range in age from six to thirteen, and they all look up at Kris with bright, hopeful eyes. After two months of convincing the administration at UNICEF that no it’s not a photo op or publicity stunt, and yes he’d like to stay and work for a year or more, Kris finally feels like he might be able to affect some small change, in all the ways he used to do before American Idol came along. Now, instead of sweeping in and out of villages and towns with cameras and media escorts, Kris is able to settle in and get to know the people he’s helping. On days like this, Kris is able to forget that he has a sprawling house in the Hollywood Hills, a wall full of trophies and plaques, and a husband who is only able to tolerate him after two bottles of wine.
He hasn’t let himself think about Adam for a while now. He needs time, to focus on something else, to sort out his thoughts, to figure out what he wants. (He won’t admit that thinking about Adam makes him too sad, too lonely, too insecure.)
He doesn’t hate Adam. He loves Adam, with all of his heart. And his misses Adam, so much that sometimes, it keeps him up at night. They haven’t spoken for two months now, and that’s the longest they have ever gone, and that includes the years before they got together. During all of those moments when he and Adam were staring each other down, (or worse, pretending the other wasn’t even there) he never thought that he would actually miss being with Adam. But he does, and so right now, the work, the heat, and the smiles on the children’s faces are the only things that are keeping him from curling up on the ground and squeezing his eyes shut tight.
The kids are all lined up in neat little rows now; they have been practicing a “special concert” just for Kris, and he thinks it’s taken all of their effort to rehearse and keep it all a secret. But they have, and now their moment has come, and Kris can see how anxious and nervous they are.
Another bead of sweat slides down Kris’s back. He smiles his most reassuring smile.
The kids sing a wonderfully off-key version of Whataya Want From Me. Kris keeps smiling, and silently wonders if this is some sort of joke, and if he actually is on camera.
~::~
People always assume that, when a relationship falls apart, it’s because someone was cheating.
Adam isn’t sure what offends him more these days; the fact that people think that either of them are actually capable of cheating, or the fact that they always assume he was the one stepping out on Kris.
It would be less offensive if it were just the fucking paparazzi. But it’s not. Several of his so-called friends have made off-handed comments, eluding to the idea that some torrid affair is what caused the rift between him and Kris. People want it to be one, big, dramatic thing, when in reality, it’s a million little things, that became something too big for either of them to handle.
Adam isn’t sure when, or how, or why it happened, it just did, and it was easier to let it go than to fight to hold on.
His friends don’t understand why he didn’t fight harder for it. They don’t understand why he still wears his wedding ring. They don’t understand that just because Kris is half a world away, and just because Adam is writing songs about endings and heartbreak, that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other.
Sometimes he still pours coffee in two mugs in the morning, which is strange, because toward the end, he’d stopped getting Kris’s coffee for him.
The first time he does it, he stares down at the second cup for a full minute, trying to process why he’d done it now, when he should have done it a month ago when Kris was still inside the house (but not talking to Adam).
The fifth time he does it, he pours out the coffee, washes Kris’s red Arkansas mug, and puts it in a back closet.
If it’s out of reach, he won’t even think about it.
~::~
Kris hasn’t written music in a very long time.
In those weeks before he made the decision to leave, he’d been too run down, too tired, too upset by the unexpected twist that his life had taken. Since he’s been here in Ethiopia, he hasn’t had much time to focus on anything but his work.
In truth, he knows that opening up his mind to write down words and melody means opening his heart to feelings he’d rather not feel, and memories he’d rather not re-live.
It’s been nearly six months since he got on a plane in Los Angeles, and ten months since he’s written a song.
The words come to him one night while he’s sitting in a small cafe on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. He’s watching the sunset, marveling in the spectacular array of colors that paint the sky, and suddenly all he can think about is Adam, and wonder if he is happy, if he is miserable, if he’s moved on, or if he is watching the sky, and wondering about Kris.
The lyrics flow out of him faster than he can write them. He jots them on a napkin, and then he buys a postcard, and writes the lyrics on that instead. He addresses it to Adam, writes their home address, and the next morning, he stares at it for ten minutes before dropping it into a mail slot at the post office.
He does it three more times over the next several weeks, until the song is complete, and the lyrics are home.
~::~
Adam stirs awake as the plane begins its decent into LAX.
He loves New York, but he’s glad to be back, even if it means coming home to an empty house.
It’s the total silence that unsettles him. The house is large, and cold, and now that it’s just him, Adam feels like it’s wasted space.
He carries his bags up to his bedroom, drops them on the floor with a thud, and collapses onto the middle of his bed. He throws an arm over his eyes to block the light, and sighs heavily.
When did he start thinking of it as his bed, and not their bed?
He’s not sure he wants to know.
~::~
Adam wakes up the next morning fully clothed, with a kink in his neck from sleeping on one too many pillows. He takes a shower, calls his mom, answers a few emails, and goes through his mail.
The postcard is a photo of a gazelle and a baboon, superimposed over a photo of a lush green mountain range. The back of the card is covered with words, written in Kris’s long, neat handwriting. Adam puts down the card without reading it, and rubs his face with his hand. He knows he needs to read it, knows he should be happy to hear from Kris, but he’s so fucking scared of what the card says. He doesn’t want to know that Kris is gone for good, that he isn’t coming home again. He grabs his phone, texts Brad and Danielle, and paces around the kitchen, his heart in his throat.
He remembers the day Kris left like it was yesterday. Kris could barely look at him, and Adam had been so full of anger back then that he’d barely listened to what his husband had to say. Kris had muttered words like, exhausted, and frustrated, and so Adam had let him leave, without really hearing where he was going, or how long he’d be gone. And maybe that was the root of their problem. In the end, they’d stopped listening to each other.
Brad and Danielle arrive in a flurry of nervous chatter and armed with two bottles of wine and a bottle of tequila. Adam makes Danielle read the card first, because he’s a coward, but as soon as she tells him its a song, he grabs the card out of her hand and reads.
He reads the words over and over, until they blur together, until the lines are imprinted in his mind.
He keeps the postcard on the table next to their bed.
Trying to remember what it was I said you had done.
Really doesn’t matter, cause you’re still my only one.
Things go wrong, things go wrong.
I know that love can sometimes change;
But in my heart I feel the same.
Don’t be so quick to say we’re through;
Things go wrong. But I still love you.
~::~
Kris tries very hard not to think about everything that will happen once he lands in Los Angeles.
In the year since he walked out on Adam, and away from their life, he has managed to find a peace within himself that he thought he’d lost. He’s afraid that returning here will mean losing that peace, will mean losing a part of himself again.
But Adam is a part of him too. And Kris is too stubborn, too in love, and perhaps too stupid to let him go.
The Santa Ana winds blow hot and dry, making his eyes sting, making his throat dry.
He swallows hard, and lays a shaky palm against the faded brown front door that stands before him. He wonders if Adam is on the other side of the door. He wonders if Adam will be happy to see him. He wonders if this is still his home.
He wonders if his key will still open the door.
Kris pulls his hand from the door, and digs the key out of his front pocket. He takes a deep breath, straightens his shoulders, and slowly slides the key into the lock. He turns the key, hears the soft click of the lock giving way, and lets out the breath he’s been holding since the wheels of his plane hit the LA tarmac.
The house is silent and still. He places his bag by the door, and walks slowly down the narrow hallway, fingers dancing lightly over the uneven surface of the wall.
It’s strange, he thinks, that everything looks the same, and yet so unfamiliar. As he enters the kitchen, he allows himself to remember all of the small moments that fill this space: Adam trying (and failing) to make a birthday cake for Alisan; he and Adam working so hard to make Thanksgiving dinner their first year in this house; both of them poking skeptically at the frozen wedding cake on their one year anniversary; the cold tile on the kitchen counter digging into his back the night they’d christened the kitchen (and back patio); the nights Kris waited alone for Adam to come home; the morning Adam told him that their adoption request had been denied; the night Kris lied to Adam about his contract negotiations with Jive; the days of heavy silence; the night Kris told Adam that he was leaving.
The moments merge together, becoming one long, thin line that represents the life that they share together.
Before he left, he could only see the things that were tearing them apart. A single note in a cacophony of sound.
He runs his palm over the tile on the kitchen counter, and closes his eyes.
Their harmony is there waiting.
~::~
Adam wonders sometimes, how his life would be if Kris had decided to stay.
Toward the end, their words and actions had been borne of pettiness and bitterness; the result of too little communication and sleep, too much stress and misunderstanding.
He thinks that if Kris had stayed, it would have only gotten worse. There would have been lawyers, and childish press statements, and a reluctant division of property, and it would have consumed their lives, and decimated their relationship.
Now there is just absence, and sadness, and regret, and longing. There’s love, Adam is sure, because Kris found a way to tell Adam more on a set of silly postcards than he had ever been able to say in person.
Still. Adam would give anything to have Kris back. He’s dying to hear the melody that accompanies the words that are scrawled across those damn cards.
The air in the house feels different.
Adam can feel it the moment he walks in. The silence feels less...permanent.
He walks into the kitchen, and sees a half-empty coffee mug on the counter that he knows isn’t his. He walks back down the hall, and sees a pair of beat up sneakers by the front door. Anxious, tentative hope swells in him as he walks up the stairs, slowly, deliberately, his hand gripping the railing, his feet blindly finding each step by muscle memory alone. Adam closes his eyes, and wraps a shaky hand around the door handle that leads to their bedroom. The door opens with a slow, low creak.
Kris is curled on top of the comforter, fast asleep. Adam slips into the room, and quietly strips off his jacket and jewelry, and toes out of his shoes. He crawls up onto the bed, lays on his side, and silently studies Kris’s sleeping face until his own eyes grow heavy and slip closed.
When he next opens his eyes, Kris is awake, and looking at him, his gaze soft.
They lay like that, facing one another, silence stretching comfortably between them, for several minutes. Adam is afraid to move, to speak, to break the magic of the moment. He’s afraid to blink, afraid that he’s dreaming, hallucinating, wishing too hard. More minutes pass, and then Kris takes a deep breath, reaches across the space between them, extends trembling fingers, and traces a long line down Adam’s cheek. Adam doesn’t blink, doesn’t dare breathe. The rough, calloused fingers run along every curve and crevice on his face, then slide down his neck. He feels a warm hand cover his chest, over his heart.
“You came home,” Adam whispers roughly.
“Yes,” Kris whispers in reply.
Adam places a hand over the one Kris still has on his heart.
“You wrote me a song.”
“It needs a melody.”
“Okay,” Adam smiles, and then, “It’s late. Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Kris grins.
~::~
One Year Later.
Kris stretches out on the sprawling grass, his arms crossed under his head. He can feel the dampness from the ground seeping into his shirt and jeans, but can’t bring himself to mind. Above him, the sky is laid out like an endless sparkling canopy. He closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. The silence of the very late night envelopes him.
The past year has been the most exhausting, most trying, most difficult, most rewarding year of his life. He and Adam have worked hard to rebuild their marriage, while still working on their respective lives and careers. There were moments, not many, but enough, when it seemed that they wouldn’t make it; that the only way to fix it was to walk away.
It was only when they both came to accept that they would never be what they once were, that they were now both less and more that they were able to move forward.
He hears the faint click of the patio door closing, and then the soft crunch of grass under Adam’s feet as he approaches.
“The grass is wet,” Adam says, as he sinks to his knees at Kris’s side. Kris opens his eyes long enough to acknowledge Adam, then lets them slip closed again. Adam sighs, and stretches out next to Kris.
“There are so many stars tonight,” Adam says after a long moment. His voice is filled with an unspoiled wonder that Kris has missed terribly. He opens his eyes, and turns his head. Adam is gazing up at the sky, his mouth turned up slightly, his eyes bright and wide. He blinks, and turns his head to look at Kris.
“I love you,” Kris whispers.
They turn toward the sky again. Adam reaches for Kris’s hand. Their fingers tangle together. Kris closes his eyes.
“I love you too,” Adam whispers.
Playlist:
Seasons of Love, Broadway Cast of Rent
January Hymn, by The Decemberists
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over, by Jeff Buckley
Long Way Round, by Stereophonics
Dearest, by The Black Keys
Postcards From Far Away, by Coldplay
Things Go Wrong, by Chris Isaak
Run, by Snow Patrol
It Wouldn’t Be The Same Without You, by Chris Isaak
Stay (Faraway, So Close), by U2
You Belong To Me, by Dean Martin
Something to Talk About, by Badly Drawn Boy