Fic: Fight or Flight - Chapter Nine
Title / Chapter: Fight or Flight (09/11)
Author: amanda: jaclyn’s twin sister / writefiction
Beta: scorpio_15
Artist: adobejunkie
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: NC-17 (over all)
Notes: First written for all_unwritten writing prompt #234: I can’t be trusted. Continued for kradambigbang Round 4.
Other Notes: Kris and Katy weren’t married when he was on Idol, but they were dating.
Master Fic Post
Master Art Post
Warnings: strong language
Word Count: 2,431
Summary: Kris and Katy call it quits before the Idol Tour begins because Kris is in love with Adam. But Kris is too afraid to tell Adam how he feels. Until one day it slips out and Kris thinks he’s ruined everything. But little does he know, Adam feels the same. Their relationship has it’s ups and downs, but what will win out in the end? Is it fight or flight for this pair?
Chapter Nine
It was a little over a month later, when the tour was half over, that the shit hit the fan. Adam and Kris had gone to a club with some of the other Idols. They had gotten a bit tipsy and weren’t being quite so careful about hiding their relationship from the public eye. When they awoke the next morning, it was to a pounding on their hotel room door.
Adam groaned and shoved his head under his pillow. “Did you forget to put the Do Not Disturb on the door?”
“Fuck, I can’t remember,” said Kris, his head pounding to the rhythm of the fist beating on their door. He stumbled from the bed and almost opened the door before realizing he was completely naked. “Shit.” He went to his duffle and grabbed a pair of sweatpants, calling out to whoever was still trying to knock down the door. “We’re awake! You can stop now!”
A second later the pounding stopped and Kris wrenched open the door. Allison was standing on the other side holding a tabloid paper up right in front of Kris’ face. Plastered on the front was a photo of Kris and Adam outside the club involved in a very passionate kiss, one that Kris remembered clearly. “Where did you get that?” He asked slowly.
Allison pushed passed him into the room and he shut the door. “I found it down in the lobby! What were you two thinking? I thought you wanted to keep this to yourselves?”
From the bed, Adam groaned and lifted his head. “Could you keep it down, Alli? My head hurts.”
Allison tossed the paper onto the bed where Adam could see it and said, “I’ll keep it down when you two figure out what you’re going to do. There’s obviously no hiding it now.”
Adam sat up as he looked at the tabloid, making sure to keep covered by the blankets. He ran a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath. Then he lifted his gaze, searching out Kris. He was on the other side of the room in a chair, his face ghostly white. “Kris?”
Kris’ head shot up, his eyes focusing on Adam.
“Are you okay?” Adam asked.
Kris rubbed the back of his neck. “I uh, I’m not…” He looked at Allison. “Can you give us some time alone?”
Allison nodded and silently went to the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned back to her friends and gave them a small smile. “You’ll be okay, guys. The fans will stand behind you and so will the rest of the Idols. We love you.” Then she was out the door.
Adam pulled on his boxer-briefs from the night before and walked over to Kris, kneeling in front of him. “Babe, are you okay?”
“What are we gonna do?” Kris asked, turning shining eyes on Adam.
Adam frowned, placing the paper on the floor, and wiped at a tear that dripped down Kris’ face. “Why are you crying? Is the tabloid really that upsetting?”
Kris clasped his hands together between his knees as he leaned forward on his elbows. He shook his head and said, “This isn’t how I wanted people to find out.” Then his eyes went wide. “Fuck! My parents! This is not how I wanted them to find out.” He hung his head again, his shoulders slumping. “They’re gonna be pissed that I didn’t tell them about us.”
“You seriously haven’t told your mom?”
“No.” Kris sighed. “I wanted to surprise them… well, mostly I wanted to surprise my mama with it. I wanted to take them out to dinner or something when we’re in Little Rock and we could tell them then.”
Adam smiled. “We can still do that. Granted, it won’t be a surprise anymore, but we could still take them to dinner.”
“It’s not the same.”
They were silent for a few minutes. Then Adam ran his hand through Kris’ hair. “Babe…” He licked at his lips. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
Kris lifted his head to look at his boyfriend. “I’m scared, Adam.”
“Of what?”
“Of the backlash, the fans, the reporters. And what about Katy? They’re going to hound her! No one knows we even broke up! I mean, look at the headline on that thing!”
Adam grabbed the magazine he’d set down beside him on the floor. There it was, in big letters across the front, a headline proclaiming Kris to be cheating on Katy with a man. And not just any man, with Adam.
Adam sighed and tossed the trashy paper away. “Katy knows you’re not together. You both know you’re not a cheater. I know you’re not a cheater. Isn’t that what matters most?”
Kris shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know.” He paused. “I don’t want the fans to think I’m some scummy guy that cheats on his high school sweetheart.”
“As long as you and Katy tell the truth about when you broke up, I doubt they’ll believe the cheating story. Especially when we say we’ve only been together for six weeks.”
Kris didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed with this sudden feeling of dread, like everything he and Adam had built together was now doomed.
Finally Adam tugged on Kris’ hands, pulling him into his lap. He hugged Kris close and kissed his hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” Kris said stubbornly as he rested his chin on Adam’s shoulder.
“Yes, I do. We have each other and I know Katy’s got your back as well as the rest of the Idols. We’ll be okay.”
“I need some time to think,” Kris whispered as he drew back from their embrace. Then he stood and grabbed up some clothes and his toiletry bag and headed for the bathroom.
****
Kris took his time in the shower, washing the smell of sweat, booze and sex off of his skin as he thought about what they could do about the mess that had been made. He needed to call Katy and make sure she was all right; he also needed to call his parents. Their tour manager was probably going to want them to explain what was going on. The public relations people were probably going to have to be notified to try to smooth over the whole cheating story. Kris felt like he was screwed, like nothing he could say or do would repair what was no doubt happening to his reputation right this minute. He shuddered to think about what was going on in the land of Twitter right now. At least the ‘Kradam’ fans would be happy… at least he hoped they would be.
When he had finished in the shower, he dried off and got dressed. He found Adam, dressed in an old t-shirt and sweats, sitting on the bed, nursing a cup of coffee. Kris couldn’t help feeling a little guilty at the way he’d left things before getting in the shower. He hadn’t even asked Adam how he felt about what was happening.
Kris tossed his toiletry bag and sweats in the direction of his duffle bag and climbed up on the bed with Adam. He sat close to Adam, rested his head on his shoulder and hoped that he would put an arm around him and pull him in close. But he didn’t. Adam just continued to sit there, staring at nothing, as he sipped his coffee. “Adam?”
Adam grunted in response and brought his mug to his lips.
Kris knotted his fingers together, his stomach feeling as if it was tied in knots, too. “Are you mad at me?” He whispered, finding that he couldn’t make his voice any louder.
Adam scrubbed a hand over his face. “Not exactly,” he grumbled.
When he didn’t say anything else, Kris rolled his eyes and sat up against the headboard. “Care to elaborate?”
“Not really.”
Now Kris frowned. What had happened since he’d been in the shower? “Are you okay? Did I do something from inside the bathroom that I’m not aware of?” He tried to make light of the situation, but if the way Adam’s body tensed in just the slightest was any indication, it wasn’t working. “Come on, Adam, talk to me.”
“It’s just… you’re freaking out about this whole thing.”
“Well… yeah, I am. I didn’t exactly want everyone to find out because we’re plastered across the paper by some paps. Especially not when we were being so… intimate.”
Adam gave Kris a look. “We were only kissing. It’s not like I haven’t done anything way more intimate than that in public.”
Kris crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. “Maybe you have, but I’ve never had my tongue down someone’s throat where anyone could see before.” He looked down at his lap, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankle. “I’ve always been very private when it comes to displays of affection. I mean, yeah, I’ll hold someone’s hand or peck them on the lips or whatever, but what we were doing?” He shook his head. “There’s something about you that just makes me… I don’t know, lose all my inhibition.” Then a lot more softly he said, “You make me fearless.”
“I do?” Adam asked quietly.
Kris nodded and chewed at his thumb nail. This whole conversation was making him uneasy. He’d never admitted to anyone how carefree Adam made him feel, not even to himself, and confessing it was making him feel like he’d just bared some secret part of his soul.
“I didn’t know that,” Adam said, his voice still soft and quiet.
“Well, now you do,” Kris muttered. He hated this vulnerable feeling that he’d given himself. It wasn’t something he’d ever really experienced before and now that he was, he wished he could go somewhere and hide.
“I hate that you feel like we can’t be affectionate in public,” Adam whispered.
Kris turned to look at him, his jaw slack. “I never said that!”
“That’s the way it sounded to me. You just… like, you said you’re not into PDAs really and I just… I like to do stuff like blowjobs in a bathroom stall and…” Adam threw his hands up like he didn’t know what else to say.
“You wonder how we can be a match made in Heaven?” Kris asked.
Adam chewed at his lower lip and nodded. “Yeah…”
“Are you… are you saying you don’t want to be with me?”
“What? No! I didn’t say that!”
“That’s how it sounded to me.”
Adam’s face took on a pinched look. “I just… how are we supposed to make this work when you’re horrified because we wound up on the front page of a paper making out?”
“That’s… that’s not what horrified me,” Kris said quietly and brought his thumb back to his mouth to chew on.
“Babe, stop that.” Adam pulled gently at Kris’ wrist, tugging his thumb out from between his teeth. He sandwiched Kris’ hand with his own and said, “You’re going to hurt yourself and you won’t be able to play your guitar.”
Kris pouted and they sat in silence for a moment.
“So, what was it that horrified you?” Adam asked.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Kris said.
“Try.”
Kris lifted his hand to his mouth and Adam grabbed that one, too, so now he had both of Kris’ hands sandwiched between his own. “No biting,” he said firmly.
“Sorry,” Kris mumbled.
“Now tell me, what freaked you out?”
Kris sighed and let his head thump back against the headboard. “It’s like… they got this picture of us in this heated kiss and we were in the shadows, trying to be safe. Granted, it was still outside in the open, but…” He took his hand back from Adam and ran it through his hair. “It’s like they stole something, like they stole a piece of my soul or something.”
“Wow… that’s kind of heavy.”
“That’s how it feels… heavy, like they stole what was supposed to be for our eyes only.”
“You feel violated,” Adam stated.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Adam wrapped an arm around Kris and drew him into his side. He kissed Kris’ hair and smoothed his hand over the other side of his head. “We’ll just have to be more careful.”
“No matter how careful we are, there will always be paparazzi trying to get a glimpse of us doing… whatever, it doesn’t matter what.” Kris sighed. “What if it’s too hard?”
“Whattaya mean? What if what’s too hard?”
Kris’ eyes teared up; he didn’t want to voice his fears out loud. “Coming out, what if it’s too hard? What if being together is too hard?”
“Are you… you’re not…” Adam took a deep breath. “You’re not breaking up with me, are you?”
“I… I don’t think so.”
Adam suddenly pulled away from Kris. “You don’t think so? What the fuck does that mean?”
The tears Kris had been holding back suddenly overflowed onto his cheeks. “It means I’m fucking scared! I’m scared of coming out, I’m scared of the backlash this could cause! What if people hate me for this?”
“Who cares what everyone else thinks?” Adam shouted.
“I do!” Kris slapped a hand over his mouth. He couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He honestly hadn’t known that what others thought of him mattered so much. He had thought he’d had more confidence than that.
Adam stared wide-eyed at Kris. “So you’d rather stay in the closet and have people like you for who you aren’t than hate you for who you are?”
“I guess so,” Kris whispered.
“Wow… I guess you aren’t the guy I thought you were.”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
“Maybe we should get separate rooms next hotel stop.”
Kris squeezed his eyes shut as he turned his face down towards his hands. His heart felt like it was being ripped to pieces right now and he knew it was his own fault. “May… maybe we should,” he choked out.
“I’m going to shower and get dressed. Then I’m going to take my things to Allie and Lil’s room. I’ll stay with them until the show.”
Kris could only nod, not trusting his voice at the moment. Then Adam got up and went about getting things ready for his shower. Once he was locked away in the bathroom, Kris curled up on his side, burrowed under the blankets and cried into his pillow.
****
Chapter Eight // Chapter Ten...