Fic: Zombies Ate Your Idols (They Were Delicious) | Bandom/AI8, I DON'T EVEN KNOW, PG-13
Title: Zombies Ate Your Idols (They Were Delicious)
Fandom: Bandom (MCR) / American Idol 8
Author: solar_cat
Pairing: Adam/Kris pre-slash (with hints of Adam/Kris/Katy?), Frank/Gerard stage!(?)gay (No, seriously, no one has any actual sex so I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS. D= )
Rating: PG-13.
Wordcount: ~3,200
Warnings: Highly unrealistic. This would never actually happen. Like, really, never.
Summary: In which Gerard Way takes a stand against discrimination, Adam Lambert discovers the importance of dice, Kris Allen is not kidnapped against his will, and the folks at 19E learn to love the stage!(?)gay. Welcome to the Zombies Ate Your Idols tour, 2010!
Notes: This highly ridiculous and implausible bit of self-indulgence can be blamed on Twitter, zeenell, b_dsaint, and I'll toss a little bit of blame at sansets, too, on principle. I have no actual explanation for why I wrote a fic where Adam Lambert goes on tour with My Chemical Romance. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. It seemed like a good idea at the time??? D=
Huge THANK YOU!!! to zeenell and b_dsaint for their truly phenomenal beta work, without which this fic would be even MORE implausible and ridiculous. <3!
PODFIC VERSION: HERE read by pennyplainknits
It's something like 3:30AM when Adam's cell phone buzzes in his pocket, and it takes him four buzzes to actually get it out of his pocket since his pants are that tight, and also Brad somehow managed to cover Adam head-to-toe in this glittery stuff that makes it really hard to grip his phone. But he finally manages to get to it just before it goes to voice-mail (victory! \0/ ), and he says, "Hello?" really quickly before even checking to see who's calling (it doesn't matter, because only friends and family and the 19E people have his number).
"Adam?" says a voice on the other end of the line, and Adam doesn't quite recognize it, but he's had a couple... a few... well, he's been drinking and anyway it's 3:30 in the morning, so he says, "Yeah?" and wonders if it's his publicist's assistant or something calling to yell at him because Perez managed to get another photo of Adam out with his friends (which he is not apologizing for, ever, because that's bullshit).
"Adam Lambert?" says the voice, and Adam has a brief moment of OH SHIT and puts on his Talking to Fans voice, which is really difficult (see: 3:30 in the morning).
"That's me. Who is this?" He wonders if the 19E people can get him a new phone number before sunup, or if he'll have to just turn the phone off for the duration.
"Hey. Um, you might not remember me. My name is Gerard? Gerard Way?"
That's about when Adam's world comes to a screeching halt and spins sideways for a few minutes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adam has no idea how Gerard Way got his phone number. He asks, but Gerard's reply is an unintelligible mumble that might have contained the word 'Mikey' at some point.
Actually, it might not be so much Gerard mumbling as Adam being kind of drunk and really tired, and Gerard starting into a long speech that seems to be about the whole Good Morning America thing and possibly the OUT Magazine thing and Adam's heard it all before so he sort of "um-hm"s his way along until Gerard gets to the part where he says,
"...that's just the sort of thing we're trying to get away from, you know? So I was thinking about it and Mikey said you don't suck." (Which makes Adam blink, but Gerard says it like it's high praise rather than sort of an insult, so he goes with it.) "What do you think?"
And Adam says, "Yeah, that sounds awesome," because he has no idea what they're talking about but it's Gerard Way who called him (even if it was at 3:30 in the morning) to babble about...something, and Adam is pretty flexible when it comes to the ideas of famous (gorgeous) rock stars.
At some point he hangs up the phone and manages to get back to his apartment and his bed, and he forgets all about Gerard Way until after he's had his first cup of coffee the next morning (afternoon, actually) and checks his phone.
He has forty-seven new voice-mails and sixty-three text messages. He checks the voice-mails first, because he can put his phone on speaker and let it play. His publicist's voice, which is instantly recognizable when Adam is not drunk and mostly awake, is the first to come through the tiny speaker:
"Adam. Would you mind telling me why My Chemical Romance is blogging about you going on tour with them this summer!?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris (who is not a good friend at all, Adam takes back every nice thing he ever said about him) laughs for a solid ten minutes when Adam tells him the whole story over lunch.
Katy, who Adam likes a whole lot more than he likes her husband at that moment looks excited and asks for tickets, when he can get them, and Adam can't say no to that. Nor to Allison's request for tickets. Or his mom's. Or Kris' mom's, which is unexpected but he has a suspicious feeling that their mothers just want to spend time gossiping about them and trading baby pictures.
It's easier than he expected, to get 19E to agree to the whole thing and hash out some kind of deal with the people over at Warner, and before he knows it, Adam is officially touring with My Chemical Romance, Summer 2010. His publicist can't shut up about it, because on one hand Adam was on American Idol and MCR's fanbase is not exactly the Idol demographic or the crowd 19E was really looking to appeal to, but Adam has seen MCR perform, and his publicist and his 19E rep have seen them perform, and yeah, Adam might fit in just fine on their tour.
He calls Gerard (he, Adam Lambert, can call Gerard Way) to talk about staging and Gerard says, "No, really, do whatever you want," and a voice that Adam is pretty sure belongs to Frank Iero comes through the phone saying, "Have you seen our shows?"
So then he calls Katie Kay and says, "How do you feel about feathers?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If Adam had thought the Idols tour was rough, he takes it all back. The touring schedule his rep emails him seems to go on for roughly the length of the seventh Harry Potter, and include every major and minor city in the continental US, plus three stops in Canada. On the plus side, he gets a tour bus completely to himself, courtesy of 19E, which means that instead of listening to Anoop snoring all night, he might actually get some sleep. It's bus sleep, which is not actual sleep, but then again, any sleep is precious when your day finishes at 1AM in New York and starts again at 5AM in Boston.
Adam isn't quite sure how this is going to go, since he knows My Chemical Romance, of course, but not to the point where he's actually hung out with them or anything, and he may honestly believe that crushes are harmless but having a massive one on Gerard Way feels awkwardly middle-school-ish and possibly a bit narcissistic. He thinks it's the hair.
Gerard, though, has no such problems, and when Adam stumbles across him and Mikey and Frank standing around outside their bus, finishing the morning's cigarettes and texting or whatever Mikey's doing with his Sidekick at 5AM, he finds himself invited on their Starbucks run -
("Thank GOD," Adam says, probably a little too enthusiastically by the way Gerard fucking giggles and Frank snickers. Mikey's face doesn't change, but Adam's getting used to that.)
- and, armed with caffeine, facing down Gerard's earnest questions about the difficulties of being out in the music business and how it's affected him. Normally Adam hates this conversation, but it's Gerard and he asks like he actually, genuinely cares about Adam personally, not some vague conglomeration of 'the gay community' (and maybe he does actually, genuinely care), so Adam finds himself talking all the way back to the buses and over Frank's yelps of pain as Bob tosses Frank out of his bunk with a, "Fuck, Iero, get the hell off!" A few minutes later Ray sort of waves as he stops in the kitchen to get a mug of "coffee that doesn't cost ten dollars," before disappearing into the studio at the back until sound check, and just like that Adam finds himself hanging out on the MCR bus more often than not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touring with My Chemical Romance is different from the Idols tour in a lot of ways.
For one, despite the fact that there are no sponsor and network flunkies 'supervising' them and setting the rules about partying and curfews (that weren't really necessary, since they were all exhausted all the time), there isn't as much chaos after-hours as Adam had expected. He knew the party line about 'clean & sober' but he hadn't expected that, yeah, there isn't a beer to be found on the MCR bus, and the fights that break out are mostly about who cheated at Mario Kart and Frank, you left your disgusting underwear in the bathroom again, you fucker! and whether Ray cursed Bob's D&D dice by setting them out all night with all the '1's facing upward.
(They end up making a stop at a game store in Phoenix, where Bob buys himself new, uncursed dice, and Adam somehow finds himself with a fake velvet bag and a set of green-and-purple iridescent dice he didn't know he needed until Gerard informed him he did. Adam's character is a Paladin, and he's pretty sure Gerard is cheating a little on his saving throws based on the way Frank looks more and more disgruntled every time Adam doesn't die.)
And on the Idols tour, he had never returned to his bus at the end of a show to find drawings of himself--onstage, throwing himself into the music with everything he has--tacked onto the fridge. He doesn't bother to ask how Gerard managed to get the security code to the door. The drawings stay on the fridge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They've been on the road a month when Kris and Katy meet them in Atlanta.
Adam loves Katy for the fact that she just giggles happily when Adam skips actually saying "hello" in favor of wrapping Kris up in a huge hug and burying his face in the crook of Kris' neck and breathing him in for as long as he possibly can.
"Hi," Kris says, gripping him tight, and Adam can hear his smile. "Hi," he says back, and if it's a little muffled by Kris' t-shirt, that's okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adam sticks around to watch MCR's set that night, even though he's sweaty and probably smells disgusting, because Kris and Katy are there, so they watch from backstage as Frank rubs his face against the outline of Gerard's dick in his ridiculously tight pants and Gerard sticks his hands down Frank's shirt. Kris raises an eyebrow, which Adam replies to with a shrug.
"Apparently it's fine as long as you aren't doing it on TV," he says, which is the conclusion he's come to after a month of watching this and of letting himself go onstage without a single peep of right-wing outrage, and Kris grins.
Katy is too entranced to comment, but Adam likes the speculative look in her eyes when he hugs Kris and tells them he'll meet them after he showers and gets out of his stage clothes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They're playing Baltimore the next night, have to hit the road, so Kris and Katy are on the verge of saying their goodbyes when Adam's phone buzzes about the same time that someone knocks on the bus door. The phone call is from their tour manager; the knock is from Gerard, who walks right in anyway.
The short version of the strange, multi-directional conversation that follows is that not one but two of the opening bands for Baltimore have come down with what may be a new outbreak of the Spanish Flu or something, if the levels of sickness they are describing are to be believed, and they're trying to scrape up a new opening act. The problem is there's no one around (besides local bands that no one's heard of, or, more importantly, heard play) because it's the summer touring season. They're barely a step away from calling to see if Lyn-Z can round up her band and get them all to Baltimore on red-eyes, even though MSI is on break and they'll have to find someone to look after Bandit, or, as a final (desperate) recourse, calling Pete Wentz, when Gerard looks up and realizes that Kris is still on the bus.
He gets a funny look on his face, and Adam resists the urge to laugh because he can tell what's coming.
"You sing, right?"
And that's how Kris Allen gets shanghai'd into the MCR summer tour. (Katy tells him to have fun and send pictures.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris has no stage clothes, no bus, and no band. Luckily, Adam's band knows most of his songs by osmosis, Adam has a bus all to himself, and Frank Iero is a tiny little motherfucker. Kris only barely remembers to call his publicist and ends up leaving a cryptic voice-mail about 'touring for a while', and Adam nearly bursts his spleen laughing at the sight Kris in an ancient--but, miraculously, only mildly pungent--Misfits t-shirt, but the audience in Baltimore (despite the gaping chasm of difference between Kris' style of music and... every other band on the tour's) claps and cheers and some of them even sing along, which Kris tells Adam backstage with a certain amount of amazement.
The people at 19E call them in a panic at about 2AM, both of their phones going off almost simultaneously.
Kris' publicist is happy with the viral and press coverage but could Kris please, please not consider Adam Lambert a role model and never do a surprise! major tour ever again or so help him, and also MTV2 wants an interview and she's trying to set something up with Rolling Stone about the album Kris is supposed to be ready to record in October. Also, she's sending his touring band out as soon as she can actually locate all of them.
Adam's publicist quits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris' dice are orange and glow in the dark. His character is a Fighter, which Adam thinks is hilarious, but Kris has some sort of magical dice mojo that lets him basically do whatever the hell he wants, including kill Adam dead, so he doesn't actually get to laugh at the big, beefy guy Gerard draws to represent Kris' character. Also, Kris cheats at Mario Kart so well that Ray lets him have the last can of Coke, which Adam has been around long enough to know is a sign of deep respect.
Kris keeps the Misfits t-shirt. (Frank has twelve of them, in case of emergencies. Like Acts of Bob.) It looks good on him, Adam thinks, once he gets used to it.
Gerard draws a new tour poster, which he then copies at Kinkos and sends ahead to every venue without bothering to tell either of their labels about it. Adam figures most of them will end up on eBay at some point. Apparently Gerard, with Mikey's blessing (which, as far as Adam can tell, means Mikey looked at the poster and nodded), has renamed the tour Zombies Ate Your Idols.
Adam never thought he'd find a drawing of himself being gnawed on by Bob Bryar and Mikey Way to be charming. Then again, he never thought he'd see a drawing of himself being gnawed on, so. The things you learn.
Adam keeps one, and sends copies to his mom and Neil. Neil texts him when it arrives, to say u make a prety corpse.
Kris sends one to Katy. He's not quite sure his parents would understand.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Zombies Ate Your Idols tour is somehow a smash hit, which no one can quite explain.
Every critic and music blog has thrown their two cents in, and it all adds up to, "Somehow this works. We have no idea why." They keep coming back for more interviews, though, and the 19E people have been calling on a regular basis to let Kris know that his album sales are spiking.
Adam basically doesn't let go of him the whole night that first call comes in, he's so proud, and Kris looks a little shellshocked. Kris deserves it, and Adam has always felt a bit guilty about stealing away the spotlight, even though he knows--and Kris keeps telling him--that Kris didn't really want the level of fame that meant he couldn't get coffee without being stalked by paparazzi. The MCR guys splurge on vegan Chinese for everyone in celebration (and partially just because there is actually a vegan Chinese place that's willing to deliver to a bunch of buses in the middle of a parking lot).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a small, Internet-based conflict brewing between those of Kris' fans who like the new, I-stole-these-shirts-from-the-MCR-bus look, and those who staunchly defend his choice to wear plaid on a regular basis.
(Adam can't decide what team he's on; Kris is adorably wholesome in his plaid, but since their Chicago show he's been letting Gerard put eyeliner on him, despite its inappropriateness to Kris' actual music, and it's so stupidly hot that Adam can't even be offended that Kris let Gerard convince him about the eyeliner thing.)
There is also a three-way war in the fanfiction communities, between the people who think Adam is sleeping with Kris, the people who think Adam is sleeping with Gerard, and the people who think Gerard and Frank are sleeping with each other (who have de facto ended up on the side of the Kradam fans). Frank posts pictures of himself doing his half-naked, monkey-octopus impersonation all over Adam on his Twitter, just to fuck with everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris ends up spending most of their long afternoon bus rides between concert stops in the Western states on the MCR bus, holed up in the recording studio that used to be a back lounge. He and Ray bonded over guitars approximately twelve seconds after they met, so Adam leaves him to it and spends his time napping or watching daytime television with Frank and Bob. Kris and Ray are actually working back there, though, as Adam finds out when Kris kidnaps him and makes him listen to a demo they just recorded (on a bus), which is... fuck, yeah, amazing; Kris' lyrics and smooth vocals kicked up by the high-energy guitar in the background. Ray even offers to come in and record it for Kris' actual album.
They're in Boise, of all places, and the crowd that night is insane and Kris is on fire, so Adam drags him back onstage during the middle of his set and does very dirty things to him, but Kris ends up with his hands down Adam's pants at one point, a wicked smile on his face, so Adam figures he doesn't mind.
Perez goes crazy, as does TMZ, the rest of the Internet, and what seems like half the Western world (the Kradam fans declare victory; the Adard people--and seriously, who even came up with that name?--firmly believe it was a stunt to throw them all off the scent). Frank gives both of them a thumbs-up, no one else seems to care, and Katy sends a text the next morning that says saw on youtube. more plz! :) which makes Kris turn bright red but he doesn't stop smiling at Adam over his coffee.
In Seattle, they do it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The poor, harried souls at 19E look at their album sales figures and finally make an executive decision to let Adam and Kris do whatever the hell they want.
(The End!)
ETA: OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, there is now awesome stick figure!fanart!! BASK IN ITS BEAUTY!! \0/ (Thanks a million, glamchemy!!)
(Click the link, y'all!)--> http://solarcat05.livejournal.com/20414.html?thread=444350#t444350
Fandom: Bandom (MCR) / American Idol 8
Author: solar_cat
Pairing: Adam/Kris pre-slash (with hints of Adam/Kris/Katy?), Frank/Gerard stage!(?)gay (No, seriously, no one has any actual sex so I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS. D= )
Rating: PG-13.
Wordcount: ~3,200
Warnings: Highly unrealistic. This would never actually happen. Like, really, never.
Summary: In which Gerard Way takes a stand against discrimination, Adam Lambert discovers the importance of dice, Kris Allen is not kidnapped against his will, and the folks at 19E learn to love the stage!(?)gay. Welcome to the Zombies Ate Your Idols tour, 2010!
Notes: This highly ridiculous and implausible bit of self-indulgence can be blamed on Twitter, zeenell, b_dsaint, and I'll toss a little bit of blame at sansets, too, on principle. I have no actual explanation for why I wrote a fic where Adam Lambert goes on tour with My Chemical Romance. I DON'T EVEN KNOW. It seemed like a good idea at the time??? D=
Huge THANK YOU!!! to zeenell and b_dsaint for their truly phenomenal beta work, without which this fic would be even MORE implausible and ridiculous. <3!
PODFIC VERSION: HERE read by pennyplainknits
It's something like 3:30AM when Adam's cell phone buzzes in his pocket, and it takes him four buzzes to actually get it out of his pocket since his pants are that tight, and also Brad somehow managed to cover Adam head-to-toe in this glittery stuff that makes it really hard to grip his phone. But he finally manages to get to it just before it goes to voice-mail (victory! \0/ ), and he says, "Hello?" really quickly before even checking to see who's calling (it doesn't matter, because only friends and family and the 19E people have his number).
"Adam?" says a voice on the other end of the line, and Adam doesn't quite recognize it, but he's had a couple... a few... well, he's been drinking and anyway it's 3:30 in the morning, so he says, "Yeah?" and wonders if it's his publicist's assistant or something calling to yell at him because Perez managed to get another photo of Adam out with his friends (which he is not apologizing for, ever, because that's bullshit).
"Adam Lambert?" says the voice, and Adam has a brief moment of OH SHIT and puts on his Talking to Fans voice, which is really difficult (see: 3:30 in the morning).
"That's me. Who is this?" He wonders if the 19E people can get him a new phone number before sunup, or if he'll have to just turn the phone off for the duration.
"Hey. Um, you might not remember me. My name is Gerard? Gerard Way?"
That's about when Adam's world comes to a screeching halt and spins sideways for a few minutes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adam has no idea how Gerard Way got his phone number. He asks, but Gerard's reply is an unintelligible mumble that might have contained the word 'Mikey' at some point.
Actually, it might not be so much Gerard mumbling as Adam being kind of drunk and really tired, and Gerard starting into a long speech that seems to be about the whole Good Morning America thing and possibly the OUT Magazine thing and Adam's heard it all before so he sort of "um-hm"s his way along until Gerard gets to the part where he says,
"...that's just the sort of thing we're trying to get away from, you know? So I was thinking about it and Mikey said you don't suck." (Which makes Adam blink, but Gerard says it like it's high praise rather than sort of an insult, so he goes with it.) "What do you think?"
And Adam says, "Yeah, that sounds awesome," because he has no idea what they're talking about but it's Gerard Way who called him (even if it was at 3:30 in the morning) to babble about...something, and Adam is pretty flexible when it comes to the ideas of famous (gorgeous) rock stars.
At some point he hangs up the phone and manages to get back to his apartment and his bed, and he forgets all about Gerard Way until after he's had his first cup of coffee the next morning (afternoon, actually) and checks his phone.
He has forty-seven new voice-mails and sixty-three text messages. He checks the voice-mails first, because he can put his phone on speaker and let it play. His publicist's voice, which is instantly recognizable when Adam is not drunk and mostly awake, is the first to come through the tiny speaker:
"Adam. Would you mind telling me why My Chemical Romance is blogging about you going on tour with them this summer!?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris (who is not a good friend at all, Adam takes back every nice thing he ever said about him) laughs for a solid ten minutes when Adam tells him the whole story over lunch.
Katy, who Adam likes a whole lot more than he likes her husband at that moment looks excited and asks for tickets, when he can get them, and Adam can't say no to that. Nor to Allison's request for tickets. Or his mom's. Or Kris' mom's, which is unexpected but he has a suspicious feeling that their mothers just want to spend time gossiping about them and trading baby pictures.
It's easier than he expected, to get 19E to agree to the whole thing and hash out some kind of deal with the people over at Warner, and before he knows it, Adam is officially touring with My Chemical Romance, Summer 2010. His publicist can't shut up about it, because on one hand Adam was on American Idol and MCR's fanbase is not exactly the Idol demographic or the crowd 19E was really looking to appeal to, but Adam has seen MCR perform, and his publicist and his 19E rep have seen them perform, and yeah, Adam might fit in just fine on their tour.
He calls Gerard (he, Adam Lambert, can call Gerard Way) to talk about staging and Gerard says, "No, really, do whatever you want," and a voice that Adam is pretty sure belongs to Frank Iero comes through the phone saying, "Have you seen our shows?"
So then he calls Katie Kay and says, "How do you feel about feathers?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If Adam had thought the Idols tour was rough, he takes it all back. The touring schedule his rep emails him seems to go on for roughly the length of the seventh Harry Potter, and include every major and minor city in the continental US, plus three stops in Canada. On the plus side, he gets a tour bus completely to himself, courtesy of 19E, which means that instead of listening to Anoop snoring all night, he might actually get some sleep. It's bus sleep, which is not actual sleep, but then again, any sleep is precious when your day finishes at 1AM in New York and starts again at 5AM in Boston.
Adam isn't quite sure how this is going to go, since he knows My Chemical Romance, of course, but not to the point where he's actually hung out with them or anything, and he may honestly believe that crushes are harmless but having a massive one on Gerard Way feels awkwardly middle-school-ish and possibly a bit narcissistic. He thinks it's the hair.
Gerard, though, has no such problems, and when Adam stumbles across him and Mikey and Frank standing around outside their bus, finishing the morning's cigarettes and texting or whatever Mikey's doing with his Sidekick at 5AM, he finds himself invited on their Starbucks run -
("Thank GOD," Adam says, probably a little too enthusiastically by the way Gerard fucking giggles and Frank snickers. Mikey's face doesn't change, but Adam's getting used to that.)
- and, armed with caffeine, facing down Gerard's earnest questions about the difficulties of being out in the music business and how it's affected him. Normally Adam hates this conversation, but it's Gerard and he asks like he actually, genuinely cares about Adam personally, not some vague conglomeration of 'the gay community' (and maybe he does actually, genuinely care), so Adam finds himself talking all the way back to the buses and over Frank's yelps of pain as Bob tosses Frank out of his bunk with a, "Fuck, Iero, get the hell off!" A few minutes later Ray sort of waves as he stops in the kitchen to get a mug of "coffee that doesn't cost ten dollars," before disappearing into the studio at the back until sound check, and just like that Adam finds himself hanging out on the MCR bus more often than not.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Touring with My Chemical Romance is different from the Idols tour in a lot of ways.
For one, despite the fact that there are no sponsor and network flunkies 'supervising' them and setting the rules about partying and curfews (that weren't really necessary, since they were all exhausted all the time), there isn't as much chaos after-hours as Adam had expected. He knew the party line about 'clean & sober' but he hadn't expected that, yeah, there isn't a beer to be found on the MCR bus, and the fights that break out are mostly about who cheated at Mario Kart and Frank, you left your disgusting underwear in the bathroom again, you fucker! and whether Ray cursed Bob's D&D dice by setting them out all night with all the '1's facing upward.
(They end up making a stop at a game store in Phoenix, where Bob buys himself new, uncursed dice, and Adam somehow finds himself with a fake velvet bag and a set of green-and-purple iridescent dice he didn't know he needed until Gerard informed him he did. Adam's character is a Paladin, and he's pretty sure Gerard is cheating a little on his saving throws based on the way Frank looks more and more disgruntled every time Adam doesn't die.)
And on the Idols tour, he had never returned to his bus at the end of a show to find drawings of himself--onstage, throwing himself into the music with everything he has--tacked onto the fridge. He doesn't bother to ask how Gerard managed to get the security code to the door. The drawings stay on the fridge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They've been on the road a month when Kris and Katy meet them in Atlanta.
Adam loves Katy for the fact that she just giggles happily when Adam skips actually saying "hello" in favor of wrapping Kris up in a huge hug and burying his face in the crook of Kris' neck and breathing him in for as long as he possibly can.
"Hi," Kris says, gripping him tight, and Adam can hear his smile. "Hi," he says back, and if it's a little muffled by Kris' t-shirt, that's okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adam sticks around to watch MCR's set that night, even though he's sweaty and probably smells disgusting, because Kris and Katy are there, so they watch from backstage as Frank rubs his face against the outline of Gerard's dick in his ridiculously tight pants and Gerard sticks his hands down Frank's shirt. Kris raises an eyebrow, which Adam replies to with a shrug.
"Apparently it's fine as long as you aren't doing it on TV," he says, which is the conclusion he's come to after a month of watching this and of letting himself go onstage without a single peep of right-wing outrage, and Kris grins.
Katy is too entranced to comment, but Adam likes the speculative look in her eyes when he hugs Kris and tells them he'll meet them after he showers and gets out of his stage clothes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They're playing Baltimore the next night, have to hit the road, so Kris and Katy are on the verge of saying their goodbyes when Adam's phone buzzes about the same time that someone knocks on the bus door. The phone call is from their tour manager; the knock is from Gerard, who walks right in anyway.
The short version of the strange, multi-directional conversation that follows is that not one but two of the opening bands for Baltimore have come down with what may be a new outbreak of the Spanish Flu or something, if the levels of sickness they are describing are to be believed, and they're trying to scrape up a new opening act. The problem is there's no one around (besides local bands that no one's heard of, or, more importantly, heard play) because it's the summer touring season. They're barely a step away from calling to see if Lyn-Z can round up her band and get them all to Baltimore on red-eyes, even though MSI is on break and they'll have to find someone to look after Bandit, or, as a final (desperate) recourse, calling Pete Wentz, when Gerard looks up and realizes that Kris is still on the bus.
He gets a funny look on his face, and Adam resists the urge to laugh because he can tell what's coming.
"You sing, right?"
And that's how Kris Allen gets shanghai'd into the MCR summer tour. (Katy tells him to have fun and send pictures.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris has no stage clothes, no bus, and no band. Luckily, Adam's band knows most of his songs by osmosis, Adam has a bus all to himself, and Frank Iero is a tiny little motherfucker. Kris only barely remembers to call his publicist and ends up leaving a cryptic voice-mail about 'touring for a while', and Adam nearly bursts his spleen laughing at the sight Kris in an ancient--but, miraculously, only mildly pungent--Misfits t-shirt, but the audience in Baltimore (despite the gaping chasm of difference between Kris' style of music and... every other band on the tour's) claps and cheers and some of them even sing along, which Kris tells Adam backstage with a certain amount of amazement.
The people at 19E call them in a panic at about 2AM, both of their phones going off almost simultaneously.
Kris' publicist is happy with the viral and press coverage but could Kris please, please not consider Adam Lambert a role model and never do a surprise! major tour ever again or so help him, and also MTV2 wants an interview and she's trying to set something up with Rolling Stone about the album Kris is supposed to be ready to record in October. Also, she's sending his touring band out as soon as she can actually locate all of them.
Adam's publicist quits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kris' dice are orange and glow in the dark. His character is a Fighter, which Adam thinks is hilarious, but Kris has some sort of magical dice mojo that lets him basically do whatever the hell he wants, including kill Adam dead, so he doesn't actually get to laugh at the big, beefy guy Gerard draws to represent Kris' character. Also, Kris cheats at Mario Kart so well that Ray lets him have the last can of Coke, which Adam has been around long enough to know is a sign of deep respect.
Kris keeps the Misfits t-shirt. (Frank has twelve of them, in case of emergencies. Like Acts of Bob.) It looks good on him, Adam thinks, once he gets used to it.
Gerard draws a new tour poster, which he then copies at Kinkos and sends ahead to every venue without bothering to tell either of their labels about it. Adam figures most of them will end up on eBay at some point. Apparently Gerard, with Mikey's blessing (which, as far as Adam can tell, means Mikey looked at the poster and nodded), has renamed the tour Zombies Ate Your Idols.
Adam never thought he'd find a drawing of himself being gnawed on by Bob Bryar and Mikey Way to be charming. Then again, he never thought he'd see a drawing of himself being gnawed on, so. The things you learn.
Adam keeps one, and sends copies to his mom and Neil. Neil texts him when it arrives, to say u make a prety corpse.
Kris sends one to Katy. He's not quite sure his parents would understand.
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The Zombies Ate Your Idols tour is somehow a smash hit, which no one can quite explain.
Every critic and music blog has thrown their two cents in, and it all adds up to, "Somehow this works. We have no idea why." They keep coming back for more interviews, though, and the 19E people have been calling on a regular basis to let Kris know that his album sales are spiking.
Adam basically doesn't let go of him the whole night that first call comes in, he's so proud, and Kris looks a little shellshocked. Kris deserves it, and Adam has always felt a bit guilty about stealing away the spotlight, even though he knows--and Kris keeps telling him--that Kris didn't really want the level of fame that meant he couldn't get coffee without being stalked by paparazzi. The MCR guys splurge on vegan Chinese for everyone in celebration (and partially just because there is actually a vegan Chinese place that's willing to deliver to a bunch of buses in the middle of a parking lot).
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There is a small, Internet-based conflict brewing between those of Kris' fans who like the new, I-stole-these-shirts-from-the-MCR-bus look, and those who staunchly defend his choice to wear plaid on a regular basis.
(Adam can't decide what team he's on; Kris is adorably wholesome in his plaid, but since their Chicago show he's been letting Gerard put eyeliner on him, despite its inappropriateness to Kris' actual music, and it's so stupidly hot that Adam can't even be offended that Kris let Gerard convince him about the eyeliner thing.)
There is also a three-way war in the fanfiction communities, between the people who think Adam is sleeping with Kris, the people who think Adam is sleeping with Gerard, and the people who think Gerard and Frank are sleeping with each other (who have de facto ended up on the side of the Kradam fans). Frank posts pictures of himself doing his half-naked, monkey-octopus impersonation all over Adam on his Twitter, just to fuck with everyone.
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Kris ends up spending most of their long afternoon bus rides between concert stops in the Western states on the MCR bus, holed up in the recording studio that used to be a back lounge. He and Ray bonded over guitars approximately twelve seconds after they met, so Adam leaves him to it and spends his time napping or watching daytime television with Frank and Bob. Kris and Ray are actually working back there, though, as Adam finds out when Kris kidnaps him and makes him listen to a demo they just recorded (on a bus), which is... fuck, yeah, amazing; Kris' lyrics and smooth vocals kicked up by the high-energy guitar in the background. Ray even offers to come in and record it for Kris' actual album.
They're in Boise, of all places, and the crowd that night is insane and Kris is on fire, so Adam drags him back onstage during the middle of his set and does very dirty things to him, but Kris ends up with his hands down Adam's pants at one point, a wicked smile on his face, so Adam figures he doesn't mind.
Perez goes crazy, as does TMZ, the rest of the Internet, and what seems like half the Western world (the Kradam fans declare victory; the Adard people--and seriously, who even came up with that name?--firmly believe it was a stunt to throw them all off the scent). Frank gives both of them a thumbs-up, no one else seems to care, and Katy sends a text the next morning that says saw on youtube. more plz! :) which makes Kris turn bright red but he doesn't stop smiling at Adam over his coffee.
In Seattle, they do it again.
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The poor, harried souls at 19E look at their album sales figures and finally make an executive decision to let Adam and Kris do whatever the hell they want.
(The End!)
ETA: OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, there is now awesome stick figure!fanart!! BASK IN ITS BEAUTY!! \0/ (Thanks a million, glamchemy!!)
(Click the link, y'all!)--> http://solarcat05.livejournal.com/20414.html?thread=444350#t444350