(no subject)
Title: The Sandbox Chronicles (12/?)
Chapter Title: Hello World
Author: me
Rating: pg-13
Summary: It all started in a sandbox.
Disclaimer: i own none of this.
Author's Notes: this chapter just kinda wrote itself. well some of it at least. thank you all for the lovely feedback/comments! it is all greatly, greatly appreciated <3 i keep trying not to incorporate those stinkin dinosaurs in here but i think this is the last time.
Part 1: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/390471.html#cutid1
Part 2: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/393316.html#cutid1
Part 3: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/398624.html#cutid1
Part 4: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/405456.html#cutid2
Part 5: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/414654.html#cutid1
Part 6: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/423438.html#cutid1
Part 7: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/432194.html#cutid1
Part 8: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/458045.html#cutid1
Part 9: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/467226.html#cutid1
Part 10: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/474838.html#cutid1
Part 11: http://community.livejournal.com/kradam_ai/489055.html#cutid1
The line is long and stretched out for what seems like miles. People huddle in groups around the line, talking and laughing, some leaning against their friends to get some extra minutes of sleep.
Adam takes a look at the time on his phone. 5:30 a.m. Hanging his head he groans loudly. One of his friends, Jake, that so graciously decided to come with him laughs and shoves Adam’s shoulder. “Come on man. You wanted to do this so perk up!” Adam glares. He’s grumpy, sleepy, and in need of some major caffeine.
“Why are you so damn cheery? It’s five-thirty in the fucking morning. I should still be sleeping,” Adam grumbles as he adjusts his bag over his shoulders. Just one cup of coffee and maybe he wouldn’t be so grumpy.
“Chill dude. Nick is coming soon. Maybe he’ll have coffee.”
Adam brightens up at the mention of coffee and he smiles. Then he sees Nick running around a corner, a Starbuck’s cup container in hand with three Styrofoam containers of coffee. Adam waves his arms over his head, ignoring the weird looks he gets from some of the people around him. Nick hurries to them and starts handing out the cups. Adam grins as he takes one of the cups of caffeinated heaven.
“You are my savior,” Adam laughs before testing the hotness. “Shit, ow, hot!” He rubs at his lips while Nick doubles over in laughter. “Shut up,” Adam mumbles and finally takes a sip of the hot drink.
“How much longer until they start letting people in?” Nick asks. Adam lets out a sigh that ends on a groan and shrugs.
“Maybe soon,” Nick muses and plants himself on the ground next to a group of girls. They giggle and start flirting, making Adam laugh above him. “Sorry girls. Don’t swing that way,” he says loudly. Their faces fall but then Jake steps in.
“Oh but I do,” he grins and sits in the middle of the group. The girls ignore Nick and turn their attention to Jake.
Adam, shaking his head, joins Nick on the ground. He leans back on his hands, coffee set on the ground next to him so he can reach it. He gazes up at the cloudy morning sky: there are hues of pink, orange, and purple mixed in with the blue and only a few clouds dotting the sky. He scrunches his face up in concentration, deciding that playing a game of “Name the Cloud Shape” is as good as any right now. Even though the clouds aren’t that big they still make shapes.
One of them resembles a dinosaur. Small but still a dinosaur.
“Yo, Adam! They’re letting us inside.” Nick kicks Adam’s foot. Adam snaps out of it, stops staring at the clouds above and lets Nick help him off the ground. He grabs Jake by the back of the jacket and hauls Jake up from the girls.
“Come on, Jake.” The girls whine but Jake tosses a piece of paper into the middle of the group and they go crazy trying to get it. “Never change Jake. Never change,” Adam laughs and drags Jake along.
They push through people to try and get closer to the front. Adam huffs impatiently but they finally make it through the doors of the building by big bouncer’s granting entrance. Nick and Jake head for a familiar lounge area while Adam goes straight to the sign-up table. He gets a number, smiles at the lady behind the table, and goes to find his two friends.
***
It’s not until around three in the afternoon that Adam gets to audition. But he thinks it’s all entirely worth the long wait when he walks out, that golden ticket to Hollywood in his hand. After sharing his excitement with anybody that cared, he grabbed Nick and Jake and they headed out to go celebrate.
A few drinks later Adam is giggling on the floor, friends surrounding him and laughing too. “This isss so great you guys!” Adam slurs and searches for his drink. When he doesn’t find it he frowns in what can only be drunkenly and Nick giggles profusely and hands Adam another martini. Adam sits up and takes the drink, grinning at the hot pink umbrella toothpick resting in the glass.
The world tilts a little bit more and Adam giggles again. His head feels like it’s going to explode but he’s so happy right now that he doesn’t care about the fact that he’s laying in the middle of a hotel room floor drunk off his ass. He has his friends around him, a ticket to Hollywood, and great alcohol. He doesn’t want to come down. Not yet at least.
A little while later Adam rolls to his feet and stumbles to the bathroom. He bumps into things and knocks something over, but it’s all good and he fumbles to pick it back up. Nick and Jake laugh so hard behind him that they’re holding their stomachs. Adam flips them off, amused and still drunk. Maybe a little high, too, seeing as how the pot was broken out about an hour ago. Adam shrugs it off though, and finally falls into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Hands braced on the edge of the sink, he leans there and looks at himself in the mirror. He may be drunk and a little high, but he’s still there enough to know that he looks like absolute shit. His eyes are puffy, red, bloodshot. His clothes from the day are rumpled and his hair looks like something buried itself in the mess and made a home. Eyeliner is smudged down one cheek from the numerous amount of laughing tear he has wiped away. He scrunches his face up at the reflection staring back.
Adam doesn’t know if it’s because he’s drunk or high or because both of them mixed together is a bad combination, but he finds himself wondering what Kris would think of him now. He wonders what Kris would think of the drugs Adam did in Europe, the numerous musicals he’s been in, the totally fucked up life he lived for awhile that almost made him give up and go back home. He wonders what Kris would think of the make-up, the numerous dye-jobs that have been done on his hair, the color it is now. He wonders if Kris would even care.
“Of course Kris would care. He’s Kris,” Adam mutters to himself.
The sobriety is slowly creeping through his body. The seven martinis, the joint, and the couple of bottles of beer he had are fading away to a buzz in his head that will only result in a pounding headache and possibly a long visit with the toilet the next morning. The buzz grows to a loud hum in his ears and he shakes his head, eyes closing against the growing ache.
“Get a hold of yourself, Lambert. Tonight is supposed to be fun. You’re going to Hollywood week on American Idol,” he tells himself in a whisper and runs a hand through his hair. He turns the water on as cold as it will go and splashes some on his face.
Sure that reality is set firmly in place, Adam goes rummaging in his bag for whatever it was he came into the bathroom for in the first place.
He grumbles while searching but when his hand bumps something plastic he stops, staring wide-eyed at the bottom of his bag. The t-rex Kris gave him all those years ago is still lying there covered in make-up and other various substances. It pains him to see that he let it get so damaged, so messed up that it’s barely recognizable.
With a shaking hand he grasps the plastic toy and holds it up. It is so dingy and beat up that it makes him want to cry. He smudges off some of the make-up smeared on the dinosaur’s side; it’s still dirty underneath. He doesn’t even know why it’s in his bag. He doesn’t remember ever putting it in there but it obviously has been in there long enough to get dirty and beat up.
Then it clicks. Neil.
“Oh Neil, you fucker,” Adam breathes out a laugh and drops the dinosaur back into his bag.
When Adam stopped all contact with Kris, he and Neil got into a fight. One of many but that one was a little more personal. It hit Adam’s every nerve and fiber and for the first time ever he wished he didn’t have a brother. Neil had gave Adam one last good ribbing, yelled some more, then stalked off. It wasn’t until later, when Adam finally came home from hanging out with friends to take his mind off of everything, that he discovered his dinosaur was gone. The spot it had sat in all those years was empty and Adam surprised himself by not caring. Until he found Neil the next day trying to hide the toy inside Adam’s bag. Adam forgot about taking it out.
“It’s been there ever since,” he murmurs, staring down at the toy.
Sighing he closes the bag, completely forgetting whatever he was looking for, and leaves, ready to get completely wasted.
***
The next morning, head pounding and stomach churning, Adam wakes. Groaning and tripping over his friends still passed out on the floor, he hurries for the bathroom. The moment his knees meet the cold tile of the floor he’s puking in the toilet. He curses and stays hunched over.
“You okay man?” Nick asks, head poked inside the door, nose scrunched up.
“I’m good,” Adam waves a hand in the air and proceeds to empty the contents of his stomach again. Nick sighs and wets a washcloth.
“You got wasted last night, dude.”
Nick crouches down and hands the cloth to Adam. Adam takes it gratefully while leaning back against the tub. He moans at the steady throb in his head. “No shit Sherlock,” he retorts, eyes closed tightly. “But why did you let me?”
“Don’t blame me. You’re the one that got slap-happy with alcohol,” Nick laughs then ducks at the washcloth flying towards his head.
“Not so loud.”
“Come on. Let’s go get you some drugs. You’ll feel better.” Nick grabs Adam’s hands and hauls him to his feet. Adam wobbles but eventually gains his footing and lets Nick manhandle him back into the room. “Put some clothes on Idol boy,” Nick throws over his shoulder, hands shoved into his duffel bag to look for the Advil.
Adam rolls his eyes and falls backwards onto the bed.
***
The San Francisco auditions end and everyone that made it through are given instructions on when and where to be back, times, all the important stuff. Once it’s over Adam heads back to Los Angeles where he knows his parents and Neil are waiting to congratulate him. After parting ways with Nick and Jake and all the others that crashed at the hotel party last night, Adam is on a plane and going home.
His dad picks him up at the airport, greeting him with a smile and a friendly hug. They chat the entire way back to Adam’s apartment. Once there, Adam runs inside to greet his mom. They hug and Adam laughs at her excitement about making it to Hollywood week.
“You’re making it, baby. You’re finally making it,” she whispers in his ear. He pushes back the tears threatening to spill over and kisses her cheek before turning to Neil.
Neil gives him a hug saying, “I’m only hugging you because I’m excited for you and you made it to Hollywood. Not because you’re my big bro,” and Adam punches him in the gut, grinning like an idiot. “Fine, fine. It’s all of those,” Neil grunts out. Then he’s smiling back at Adam and hugging him again.
“Hey, I gotta ask you something,” Adam tells Neil quietly after they pull away. Neil nods, a wary expression on his face. “Oh shut up. It’s nothing bad,” Adam rolls his eyes and swats at Neil’s shoulder.
“Come on boys. We’re going out to eat,” Leila says brightly. Adam and Neil follow them out the door and Adam shakes his head: he hasn’t even been home for ten minutes and he’s already leaving again.
The ride to the restaurant is filled with Adam and Neil arguing over something silly and Leila has to reach back there and smack both of them on the back of the head. Adam grumbles something under his breath and Neil glares stubbornly. Leila mutters something about how boys never grow up just as Eber pulls into the parking lot. They all file out and head inside, Neil and Adam going at it again.
A waiter seats them, flirting with Adam the entire time, but Adam is too happy to notice much. He slides into the booth next to Neil. Their parents order drinks then go straight for the salad bar. Adam decides this is the time.
“Neil, you remember that fight we got into the day after Kris left?” Adam asks warily. He bites at his bottom lip as he waits for Neil to answer.
“Duh. It was only one of the most epic fights we’ve ever had,” Neil gestures wildly with his hands and Adam thinks off-hand that Neil may be the one that’s the most diva of the family. “What about it?”
“You remember how I found you putting that stupid dinosaur in my bag ‘cause you stole it and needed somewhere to hide it?”
Neil snorts in laughter. “That dingy old thing?”
“Yeah.” Adam picks up his napkin, fiddles with it until it’s rolled up in a neat cylinder. “I found it last night.”
“Really? I thought you took it out after you finished chasing me around the house screaming at me,” Neil shrugs.
“I forgot about it apparently. But I just wanted to know why you were putting it in my bag. Of all places to hide the thing it had to be my bag.” Adam tosses the rolled up napkin at Neil who dodges it laughing.
“I don’t know. That was always the first place I thought of to hide things.” Neil sighs and reaches for the aforementioned bag to which Adam grabs at wildly. Neil shoves his hand in and, making a face at all the things he’s bumping his hand into, finds the toy. When he takes it out he starts laughing loudly.
Adam snatches the dinosaur away and, not even thinking about, holds it close. “Shut up, Neil. You put it in there,” Adam points out defiantly and instinctively grasps the toy tighter.
“Adam, why did you even keep it all those years? You and Kris went your separate ways, even before that huge blow out, and you guys didn’t even have that much in common anymore. It’s kinda pointless to keep holding onto it,” Neil pats Adam’s elbow sympathetically, for once, and Adam releases a breath fast.
For the first time, Adam doesn’t know how to respond to something so simple. Maybe because it isn’t so simple an answer. He knows why he held onto it and then kept it for all these years that he didn’t know he had it. In his mind that dinosaur is the last piece of Kris he has; the last shred of hope that maybe one day they’ll see each other again and can work things out. So he will hold on to the dinosaur and he will hold on to that remaining hope.
After all these years Adam still misses Kris.