No matter what happens, we will always be friends....part 1/3
A Kradam fic in 3 parts Unfortunately these boys do not belong to me. Nope, not even remotely. And this story is 100% not true of course. It is inspired by real photographs though, and certain events that (might) have transpired from them.
Part 1/3
'All she wants to Do is Dance' had been a disaster. Kris knew that. Everyone else knew that. He was just so relieved to be staying another week with all his friends, to have another chance to prove his talent. And, if he was honest with himself, to be staying around someone in particular, just a little bit longer. He didn't really know how much more time he had, but he was thankful for this. For one more week.
Part 1/3
Everyone piled into the black SUV waiting on the curb to take them from the restaurant and back to the mansion. Kris was chatting and giggling along with the others, and feeling more than a little tipsy. He could not believe that he was still here - still an Idol contestant! 'All she wants to Do is Dance' had been a disaster. Kris knew that. Everyone else knew that. He was just so relieved to be staying another week with all his friends, to have another chance to prove his talent. And, if he was honest with himself, to be staying around someone in particular, just a little bit longer. He didn't really know how much more time he had, but he was thankful for this. For one more week.
Watching Adam perform 'Mad World' last night Kris had been physically struck, had actually felt some of that pain that Adam must have gone through growing up, being so different, and unwilling to hide. He was a little in awe of his new friend, of his talent and the way he commanded the stage, the audience. The way he commanded himself. His energy. He thought about how Adam's experience was so different in almost every way from Kris's own High School years of fitting in and being one of the guys, dating the prom queen. But then everyone has their own struggles, don't they? Some people just handle it differently, he thought.
Kris glanced over a little bashfully at Adam who, he noticed, was oddly subdued. Not his normal self Kris thought. Adam was always the life and soul of these gatherings usually. It probably had something to do with those asshole comments by Gokey and his fucking family, Kris thought. And WTF was that picture signing business all about? Gokey knew Adam was sensitive about that stuff since those 'other 'pictures had surfaced on the web only a few weeks back.
Adam felt Kris looking at him from under his lashes and returned his look shyly, giving him a weak smile in response. Kris smiled back with a reassuring nod of his chin. He wished he was sat a little closer to Adam in the car now, so that he could have squeezed his knee in sympathy, but Ali was sat there instead, not noticing the sad hurt look on Adam's face as she laughed along with Lil about some joke that Kris had somehow missed. Kris started to feel a little riled now. Gokey's such an asshat he thought, clenching his fist a little and bunching up the denim against his thigh. Kris cast his mind back to the previous night, when he and Adam had sat up 'til 5 am taking in low whispers, so as not to wake the others. As usual too high from performance night to go to sleep. Talking about all their hopes and dreams and fears for the future, and how they had both come to be here in the first place. Kris wore a little half smile on his face at the memory; thinking about how neither had wanted to go to sleep, but how in the end neither could keep their eyes open any longer.
Then Kris thought about earlier tonight, about how on the show he had felt a little strange when Adam had hugged Anoop and patted Matt on the shoulder. How when he thought that Ali was going to be in the bottom 3 he had gripped Adam's knee a little too hard for moral support. And how when they had both stood up to congratulate Ali because she was safe, he had felt his jeans were just a little constricting, but had sat down even closer to Adam anyway, practically on top of him he now recalled with a slight blush, wanting to feel the reassuring warmth from his long lean thigh.
They had arrived. They all tumbled out of the SUV and clattered into the kitchen, still laughing and bantering, everyone too high to go to bed just yet. Everyone except Adam. "Guys I'm gonna crash - its been a long day he said. See you all in the morning" . Kris turned his head turned to watch as Adam slowly made his way upstairs and felt something constrict in the pit of his stomach. He sat there for a few more minutes, looking from one grinning happy face to another, but he just couldn't follow the conversation any more. "Hey guys, I'm gonna crash too y' know, its an early start tomorrow" and with that he turned and walked up the stairs after Adam, not looking around as a chorus of "Yeah, nite dude" followed his retreating back.
The room was dark save for the dim glow of light coming from under the bathroom door when Kris pushed open the door to their shared room, staring around while trying to adjust his eyes. He glanced towards the bathroom expecting to hear the sound of the shower running, and was slightly startled when he heard a voice saying "I'm over here Kris". As he closed the door behind him, his eyes adjusting better to the dim light, he made out the hunched figure of Adam sitting on his bed, his head in his hands, looking very still. Kris walked the few paces over to him and stopped a few inches in front of his friend.
"Hey dude, are you all right?" Kris asked "you seemed awfully quiet on the way back in the car?" No reply. "Adam?" softer now, Kris ventured again. Adam raised his head from his hands and Kris could see tears glistening on his friend's face as he looked up at him with sad shining eyes. "Hey, hey, what's all this?" Kris asked suddenly concerned, sitting right next to Adam on his bed, pushing his thigh comfortingly against his friends long leg. "Don't take any notice of those fuckers!" Kris said suddenly angry as the vision of that picture came swimming back into his head, and Gokey's mocking laugh as he asked Adam to sign it. Seeing his friend like this, so vulnerable and hurt, when he was normally the strong one, the one everyone else in the house turned to when they had problems, made his temper flare again.
Adam flashed him a weak grin and sighed, he had never heard Kris say 'fuck' before. It was kinda cute. Kris wrapped an arm round his friends shoulder and pressed his forehead into the side of Adam's temple. "Oh, I know I shouldn't get upset" Adam mumbled. "Hell I should be used to this kind of thing by now. Its just that my guard was down, and I am really tired and..." The warmth of Kris's breath on his cheek made him falter. The obvious concern and the heat of his friends body pressed so closely to his made him suddenly feel more sad than he had felt in a very long time, and a half sob escaped involuntarily from his lips.
Kris felt Adam's sob shudder through him and it made something lurch uncontrollably in his stomach. Very gently, he raised his left hand to cup Adam's jaw and tip his friends face up to meet his own gaze. Adam's eyes were wide and beautiful, more black than blue now... and pooled with tears, and sadness, and...and there was something else there too. Kris felt himself getting lost in those eyes, felt his voice come rumbling low from deep in his own chest, while he brushed the tears from Adam's right cheek with his thumb. "Its OK, I got you."
When Kris looked back on that night, he didn't really know quite how it happened, maybe the magnetism in those eyes had pulled him in. Maybe he had always know that this was going to happen when he first set eyes on Adam's tall animated frame, with its shock of black hair and those dark rimmed piercing blue eyes back in Hollywood week. But he did know that he was the one to lean in now, the one to brush his lips ever so softly against Adam's, the one to wrap his hand around the back of Adam's neck and pull him closer, deepening the kiss. Kris was the one to say, low and soft against his friends lips, "I won't ever let anyone hurt you ever again..."
*End of Part 1*