Fic - I Need to Know
Title: I Need to Know
Author:
fizzerbass
Rating: PG-13 (mostly for language)
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Summary: Kris lets Adam listen to "I Need to Know".
Warnings: Unbetaed.
Notes: So, I posted a true one-hundred word drabble last week about "I Need to Know" and said I might have something else to say about this song that owns my soul. Turns out I had 3,600 more things to say. :) Hope you like them.
Adam rolls over, wondering what woke him in the first place. The hotel room is dark, the air-conditioner gently humming in the corner and stirring the curtains above it. He closes his eyes figuring it’s nothing when he hears the scratch of a key card in the lock outside.
He gets out of bed as Kris enters the room, his messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a huge bottle of water in the other. Kris doesn’t say a word, just drops his things on the desk and hands a CD to Adam, barely looking at him. He’s clearly exhausted: shoulders slumped, eyes smudged, weariness seeping from every pore of his body. Adam looks at the clock - four thirty a.m. - and gently steers Kris to the bed as he takes the proffered disc and puts it on the hotel nightstand.
“I’ll listen tomorrow-“
Kris toes off his Chucks and climbs under the covers fully clothed. “No, listen now. I need to know-” he laughs, almost manic. “I want to hear what you think of it.”
They’ve done this all along, sharing their new songs with each other as they tour and record at the same time. Granted, most of the sessions were over much earlier than this and Kris never looked like he’d been hit by a train by one before, but Adam wasn’t surprised to see the younger man in his room at this hour. Even, during Idol, Kris had always wanted instant feedback on his music.
“Kris. You’re semi-comatose at best and we have bus call in less than four hours. I’ll listen later.”
Adam inhales a sharp breath as Kris bolts upright and grabs his wrist, his brown eyes churning.
“Listen now. Please, Adam. Just…listen.”
Adam looks down at Kris’s hand, his knuckles white where he’s clasping Adam’s arm. All he wants is for Kris to get some sleep and lose the haunted look he’s carrying, so he takes the path of least resistance. “Okay, fine, I’ll listen. But on my laptop with earphones because you are going to sleep. Now. We can talk about it on the bus later.”
Kris gives a small nod and falls back to the pillows. Adam helps settle the comforter up over his shoulders before picking up the disc and crossing to the couch where he’s laid his computer. He loads the CD and waits for it to boot, looking back over his shoulder to see Kris still awake and staring at him
“Kristopher. Close your eyes. Sleep.”
“Can’t. Want to watch you listen.”
Adam opens his mouth to protest, but Kris’s soft voice stops him mid-utterance.
“Please.”
This feels different from all the other times Kris has come back from recording and given Adam his music to listen to. This feels heavier, burdened, and Adam doesn’t think it’s got anything to do with the lateness of the hour or the depth of Kris’s exhaustion. Feeling like he’s agreeing to something he’s not quite sure of, Adam presses play and sits on the edge of the bed, crooking one knee and turning to face Kris.
The song starts slowly, softly, a piano playing a simple, soulful three-note chord progression that gives Adam chills because it’s sounds so very sad. It’s feels introspective, making him immediately think of the quiet look Kris gets on his face when they’re riding on the bus and Kris is staring out the window, lost to a world only he lives in. Usually, the look makes Adam smile on the inside, but this…this sound-equivalent is haunting, making Adam bow his head and close his eyes.
“Life’s been blinding me, to what I thought I’d see. Is there clarity in this insanity? What you want from me? Yeah.”
Kris sounds so, so tired in the song, his voice craggy and rough like he’s just woken up, and Adam is stunned at the resignation he hears in the notes, the defeat whispering between the beats of the constant piano background. He steals a peek at Kris’s face, the brown eyes meeting his looking as weary as his recorded voice sounds.
“Roads in front of me, taking me astray. Are you leaving me or are you leading the way? Can you hear what I’m saying?”
Adam braces his hands beside him, grabbing handfuls of the hotel standard bedspread to keep him grounded as Kris’s yearning voice washes over him, stirring something deep in his chest. He bites down on his lower lip and feels his shoulders tensing, against what, he doesn’t know..
“I need to know. I need to know. I need to know. I need to know.”
Adam breathes deep through his nose, head still bent against the weight of Kris’s stare. The refrain repeats and Adam can just picture Kris’s face as he was singing: earnest, unassuming, and honestly trying to figure out whatever this knot is he’s gotten tied up in. The words are soft, not necessarily demanding, but still potently powerful in their request, and Adam feels conflicted. He wants so badly to do something, anything, to help ease Kris’s confusion, to help answer Kris’s plea, but he doesn’t know what that might be.
“Feels like I’m trying to breathe underwater.” Adam’s hand comes to his chest, trying to ease the ache the weight of Kris’s words are laying on his heart, making breathing difficult. “Trying to climb but I keep falling farther. Will you take my hand?” Adam’s heart clenches at Kris’s simple request, picturing an innocent child holding out their hand, secure in the knowledge someone will grab it and hold on. He can feel Kris staring at him and wonders if Kris pictures Adam’s hand as the one who takes his and doesn’t let go.
“Feel so far away. Want to see your face. Are you even there? Can you show me? Can you make me believe?”
Kris’s voice rises and gains strength, only to break on the last note of ‘believe’ as if tortured and Adam can’t take it anymore, can’t bear hearing Kris so honest and open and plainly hurting. He wants to move, wants to run or reach forward and grab Kris in his arms, but can only cover his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking with his tears. He’s sobbing, sobbing¸ as Kris’s voice soars all around him, the piano and strings swelling and filling the air until he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move, the pounding of the notes beating against his heart, his soul. He feels torn, not in two, but into a million pieces, his heart shattering at the naked anguish surrounding him, suffocating him and tearing him apart as his thoughts collide against each other in his head.
In true Kris fashion, the outburst doesn’t last long, the song falling back down to its quiet beginnings as Kris sings again, his voice tired, resigned and holding a quiet plea for resolution.
“I need to know. I need to know.”
Kris hasn’t moved once while the song was playing and only now shifts his foot under the covers to press against Adam’s hip as Adam sits there and cries. The song starts to repeat and Adam stabs out blindly to cut it off, nearly knocking his computer off the couch in his haste to make it stop. He hides his face in the crook of his elbow, wrapping his other hand around his head to hold himself together, to keep from flying apart. Kris struggles from under the covers and crawls across the bed to lay his hand on Adam’s back.
“Adam-”
Adam shoots up, whirling around to face the other man as he scrubs his hands across his eyes. “No. This has to stop. Whatever we’re pretending is or isn’t there…this has to end. We can’t do this anymore.” He jabs at the computer to get the disc out and thrusts it angrily in Kris’s face. “This is killing you.”
Kris wraps his fingers around the disc, covering Adam’s hand. “Adam, I’m right here. I’m not dying.”
“Yes you are! Can’t you hear it?” Can’t you feel it?” He wipes his nose on his sleeve, swiping at his eyes again as he tries to free his hand from Kris’s. “I’m not doing this to you any more.”
“Adam, you aren’t doing anything to me. That’s not what this is about.” He squeezes his hand over Adam’s on the disc. “You’re not hurting me.”
“Kris, there is nothing but pure pain on this disc.”
“That’s not pain, Adam. That’s me questioning, seeking answers…looking for truth.”
“It’s pain, Kris.”
“Its growth, Adam.” “Growth isn’t supposed to hurt.”
Kris snorts out a huffed laugh. “That’s kind of the definition of growth, Adam.”
“Yeah well, I can’t be the cause of it. I can’t be the one making you do this.”
“You aren’t making me do anything, Adam. I’m here of my own free will. I’m here because I want to be.”
“At whose expense though, Kris? Yours? Katy’s? Your parents? You really want to put them through this? Put them through all this pain?”
“I kind of think it’s worth it. I kind of think you’re worth it, that we’re worth it.”
Adam shakes his head, backing away from Kris. “No, Kris, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kris waves the disc slightly, drawing Adam’s eyes. “That’s why I’m asking, Adam. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Find out what, exactly?”
Kris sighs, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck as he sits on the edge of the bed. He drops his hands to his lap and idly plays with the CD, rubbing his thumbs along the edges. “To find out if this is what my life is supposed to be.” He sighs deeply and raises his head to look at Adam. “To find out if you’re going to be with me, next to me, if I’m led down this path.”
Adam deflates. “I can’t, Kris. This isn’t my path to take.”
“You’re scared.”
“I don’t want to cause you any more pain than I already have. I don’t want to hurt Katy.”
“So you’d rather not try this? You’d rather not try to be with me just so Katy doesn’t get hurt? You’d rather give up on this because it might be hard?”
“That’s not it, Kris.” Adam shakes his head. “You don’t know what you want. What you’re asking. I’m a gay man. One-hundred percent out and not ashamed of it. If we were to get together, you’re whole life would change in ways you can’t even imagine. Are you really ready to change the rest of your life, the rest of your whole family’s life for this? For me?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Adam smiles a little wistfully. “You’re here because we’re friends, because it’s what you know, what you’re comfortable with in this insanity we’re part of right now. It won’t be like this in the real world.”
Kris chuckles. “That’s funny, because this is about the only thing lately that feels real. Not Katy, not my family back in Arkansas. You. You and me feels real…feels right. Feels like something I didn’t even know I was waiting for.”
“Kris…” Adam chuckles disbelievingly to himself. “Are you even the littlest bit gay? Do you really find me even the littlest bit attractive in a sexual way? And I do mean sexual in terms of my cock in your ass or your mouth sliding up and down on my cock until I come in your mouth. I don’t mean how good it feels when we collapse together on a sofa somewhere and you conk out on my chest.”
Kris winces and Adam calls him on it. “See! You can’t even listen to the words, how are you going to do the deeds?”
“Adam, you know it’s not like that. I’ve thought about it, I just don’t talk that way, don’t use those words.”
“Oh pu-lease!” Adam rolls his eyes. “You’ve thought of us together. Naked. Slippery and sweaty and horny as hell?”
“Uhm, yes?”
Adam props his hands on his hips and gives Kris a scathing look, sarcasm dripping freely. “Really.”
Kris matches his stance. “Yes, Adam, really.” They stand there, staring at each other, until Adam cocks an eyebrow and Kris caves, waving his hands to show defeat. “Fine, fine, yes, you’re right. I haven’t really gotten that specific when thinking about sex with you.”
Adam smiles in triumph, wondering in what fucked up world he’s actually happy a cute guy isn’t thinking about having sex with him.
“But I have thought about it.” Kris looks down at his feet, wriggling his toes in his socks. “I’ve thought about it a lot…kissing you. What it would feel like. How it would be different from Katy.” He looks up, shoving his hands in his front pockets as a light blush stains his cheeks. “I’ve wondered what you taste like.”
Adam takes in a deep, slow breath, his heart tripping over Kris’s words and heat pooling low in his stomach. “Kris…I don’t think you really mean that the way you think you do.”
“Oh no?”
“No! Did you even listen to the lyrics you just wrote?” Adam takes the CD from Kris and goes to his computer to play the song again, skipping ahead to the middle.
Roads in front of me, leading me astray. Are you leaving me or leading me away?
Adam pauses the recording and looks at Kris. “You think these feelings you’re having for me are leading you astray. That your God will leave you if you do this, if you be with me.”
Kris strides over to Adam, his eyes blazing. “You know that’s not true. You know I don’t feel that way about being homosexual. God is going to love me no matter what I do as long as I keep Him in my life, as long as I always turn to Him for guidance. That whole ‘astray’ line is because this new path I see is so different from what I thought my life would be like.”
Adam throws his hands wide. “Exactly! Your life isn’t supposed to be this way because you’re. not. gay! You can’t just throw away everything you have because of a few confusing feelings. You can’t just snap you’re fingers and change like that.”
Kris shakes his head, a stubborn look in his eyes. “It isn’t ‘just like that’, Adam. I’ve been feeling this way for a while now and you’re wrong. People grow. People change.” He stares Adam dead in the eye. “People fall in love.”
“Kris-“
“No, Adam, let me finish.” He grabs Adam’s arm and pulls him down to sit on the bed. “Do you know what I did tonight?”
“You went to write with Lindy and Mark.”
Kris nods. “Yeah, I went to write with them and nothing was working. I mean nothing. I couldn’t come up with a single line, a single lyric, and it was seriously stressing me out. I mean, I’ve never been blocked like that before, never been so stuck I could feel it clogging my throat.” Kris’s hands clench in frustration at the memory. “I mean, c’mon, I’m always feeling something, you know?”
Adam smirks a bit because, yeah, Kris is always feeling something and anybody can tell what it is just by looking at his face. Poker faces and Kris Allen are not in the same dictionary. “Wow. Frustrating, huh?”
Kris growls and flops back on the bed, covering his eyes with his arm. “You don’t even know. I felt like I was going to explode or something, like ants were crawling all underneath my skin.” He scrubs his eyes and leaves his hands covering his face. “Lindy said we should take a break, get some dinner or something, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t not be moving.”
Adam reaches out and lays a hand on Kris’s chest, hating to see him so unsettled. Kris covers the hand with his own but keeps talking to the ceiling.
“So I walked. I walked and walked and walked.” He chuckles to himself, jostling their hands a bit. “I probably did, like, fifty laps around that block, Mark and Lindy looking at me each time I passed the window of the restaurant, probably thinking I was crazier than crazy. But I couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.” He turns on his side to face Adam, keeping one hand tangled with Adam’s and using the other to prop his head up.
“All that time I was walking, I kept thinking ‘Call Adam. Call Adam. Call Adam.’ That’s what finally stopped me.”
“What, can’t walk and dial?” Adam claps his free hand over his mouth as Kris gives him the evil eye. “Sorry, I get snarky when I’m nervous and its five o’clock in the morning and my best friend is lying in my bed with bags under his eyes having an exi-”
Kris tugs on Adam’s hand he’s still holding, talking right over him. “What stopped me is I realized that I didn’t even once think of calling Katy. Not once. It didn’t even enter my head to talk to her. All I wanted to do was call you, hear your voice and know that I could come back here when I was done and be with you.” He links their fingers together, his voice a gruff whisper. “All that walking and I realized maybe I was walking the wrong path all along.”
He lets go of Adam’s hand and rolls back down to the bed. “We went back to the studio and I just laid there on the floor in the middle of the room, my head full of questions…full of you and Katy and direction and paths…and I didn’t even realize I had started playing until Mark set the mic up over my head. We recorded the song in like, forty-five minutes or something, never even stopping to write down the lyrics. It was so weird…I really didn’t feel like I was even there, like I was even doing anything but singing words someone else had put in my head.” He wipes his eyes tiredly. “It was so surreal.”
Adam stares at Kris, not even having the first clue what to do with all this information: the song, the lyrics, Kris’s admissions and his honesty. Sure, he’d fantasized about getting together with Kris, but that’s why they were called fantasies, because they were never going to happen, right? Now, Adam didn’t know what the hell to think. Kris was questioning his life with Katy? Questioning his own sexuality? Thinking about being with Adam in a man-on-man kind of way? It was too much, too many things to think about Adam was totally lost, totally confused.
“So what happens now?” He clears his throat, willing some of the nervousness from his voice. “We wait for God to give you an answer?”
Kris shakes his head. “God won’t give me the answers.”
“Excuse me?” Adam boggles. “Forgive my French, but then why the fuck did you ask him?”
Kris chuckles softly and sits up again, shifting to lean back against the headboard. “God doesn’t just hand you the solutions to all your problems, Adam. You have to figure them out for yourself using the tools he gave you.”
Adam crawls up next to Kris, their shoulders touching when he settles. “I so totally don’t understand.”
“God gave me the talent to come up with the lyrics to the song” Kris begins as he turns his head to look at Adam. “And he gave me the courage to come here and share it with you.” He brings his hand up to Adam’s cheek and turns it so they’re looking at each other. “Where we go from here is up to me.”
Adam swallows hard, Kris’s hand burning against his skin. “Up to you? I don’t get a say in any of this?”
Kris nods, his thumb stroking across Adam’s lips. “Of course you do.”
“And if I say no?” Adam whispers and closes his eyes, wondering how the hell he thinks he’ll ever be able to say no to this.
Kris doesn’t falter, just keeps running his thumb back and forth, making Adam’s lips tingle. “Then I’ll have my answer, won’t I?”
Adam whimpers. “Kris-” the words coming after cut off by Kris pressing his finger against Adam’s lips.
“Adam. Shush.” He leans in, placing his lips softly on top of Adams. “Don’t say no.”
Adam opens his mouth to welcome Kris’s tongue and he feels exactly how he did when listening to the song a few minutes ago. He’s surrounded by feeling, his emotions swelling to a crescendo as Kris deepens the kiss and pulls him even closer, their hands clasping each other’s faces as if to never let go. Adam knows he’s making pathetic noises, knows he sounds helpless and lost and scared but he really doesn’t care. Nothing has ever felt so right before, so completely comfortable and sexy and hot and he really, really, really wants to never stop kissing Kris Allen. Ever. But they have to breathe sometime and Adam takes advantage of the oxygen break to ask the question he hopes he knows the answer to.
“So? Find out what you need to know?”
Kris smiles, his face beaming and happy. He tugs Adam over to lay on top of him as he shifts down on the bed, pressing his obvious erection into Adam’s hip. “I’m taking the right path,” he whispers breathlessly as he reaches up for another kiss, his eyes sparkling. “And you taste like Twizzlers.”
Author:
fizzerbass
Rating: PG-13 (mostly for language)
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Summary: Kris lets Adam listen to "I Need to Know".
Warnings: Unbetaed.
Notes: So, I posted a true one-hundred word drabble last week about "I Need to Know" and said I might have something else to say about this song that owns my soul. Turns out I had 3,600 more things to say. :) Hope you like them.
Adam rolls over, wondering what woke him in the first place. The hotel room is dark, the air-conditioner gently humming in the corner and stirring the curtains above it. He closes his eyes figuring it’s nothing when he hears the scratch of a key card in the lock outside.
He gets out of bed as Kris enters the room, his messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a huge bottle of water in the other. Kris doesn’t say a word, just drops his things on the desk and hands a CD to Adam, barely looking at him. He’s clearly exhausted: shoulders slumped, eyes smudged, weariness seeping from every pore of his body. Adam looks at the clock - four thirty a.m. - and gently steers Kris to the bed as he takes the proffered disc and puts it on the hotel nightstand.
“I’ll listen tomorrow-“
Kris toes off his Chucks and climbs under the covers fully clothed. “No, listen now. I need to know-” he laughs, almost manic. “I want to hear what you think of it.”
They’ve done this all along, sharing their new songs with each other as they tour and record at the same time. Granted, most of the sessions were over much earlier than this and Kris never looked like he’d been hit by a train by one before, but Adam wasn’t surprised to see the younger man in his room at this hour. Even, during Idol, Kris had always wanted instant feedback on his music.
“Kris. You’re semi-comatose at best and we have bus call in less than four hours. I’ll listen later.”
Adam inhales a sharp breath as Kris bolts upright and grabs his wrist, his brown eyes churning.
“Listen now. Please, Adam. Just…listen.”
Adam looks down at Kris’s hand, his knuckles white where he’s clasping Adam’s arm. All he wants is for Kris to get some sleep and lose the haunted look he’s carrying, so he takes the path of least resistance. “Okay, fine, I’ll listen. But on my laptop with earphones because you are going to sleep. Now. We can talk about it on the bus later.”
Kris gives a small nod and falls back to the pillows. Adam helps settle the comforter up over his shoulders before picking up the disc and crossing to the couch where he’s laid his computer. He loads the CD and waits for it to boot, looking back over his shoulder to see Kris still awake and staring at him
“Kristopher. Close your eyes. Sleep.”
“Can’t. Want to watch you listen.”
Adam opens his mouth to protest, but Kris’s soft voice stops him mid-utterance.
“Please.”
This feels different from all the other times Kris has come back from recording and given Adam his music to listen to. This feels heavier, burdened, and Adam doesn’t think it’s got anything to do with the lateness of the hour or the depth of Kris’s exhaustion. Feeling like he’s agreeing to something he’s not quite sure of, Adam presses play and sits on the edge of the bed, crooking one knee and turning to face Kris.
The song starts slowly, softly, a piano playing a simple, soulful three-note chord progression that gives Adam chills because it’s sounds so very sad. It’s feels introspective, making him immediately think of the quiet look Kris gets on his face when they’re riding on the bus and Kris is staring out the window, lost to a world only he lives in. Usually, the look makes Adam smile on the inside, but this…this sound-equivalent is haunting, making Adam bow his head and close his eyes.
“Life’s been blinding me, to what I thought I’d see. Is there clarity in this insanity? What you want from me? Yeah.”
Kris sounds so, so tired in the song, his voice craggy and rough like he’s just woken up, and Adam is stunned at the resignation he hears in the notes, the defeat whispering between the beats of the constant piano background. He steals a peek at Kris’s face, the brown eyes meeting his looking as weary as his recorded voice sounds.
“Roads in front of me, taking me astray. Are you leaving me or are you leading the way? Can you hear what I’m saying?”
Adam braces his hands beside him, grabbing handfuls of the hotel standard bedspread to keep him grounded as Kris’s yearning voice washes over him, stirring something deep in his chest. He bites down on his lower lip and feels his shoulders tensing, against what, he doesn’t know..
“I need to know. I need to know. I need to know. I need to know.”
Adam breathes deep through his nose, head still bent against the weight of Kris’s stare. The refrain repeats and Adam can just picture Kris’s face as he was singing: earnest, unassuming, and honestly trying to figure out whatever this knot is he’s gotten tied up in. The words are soft, not necessarily demanding, but still potently powerful in their request, and Adam feels conflicted. He wants so badly to do something, anything, to help ease Kris’s confusion, to help answer Kris’s plea, but he doesn’t know what that might be.
“Feels like I’m trying to breathe underwater.” Adam’s hand comes to his chest, trying to ease the ache the weight of Kris’s words are laying on his heart, making breathing difficult. “Trying to climb but I keep falling farther. Will you take my hand?” Adam’s heart clenches at Kris’s simple request, picturing an innocent child holding out their hand, secure in the knowledge someone will grab it and hold on. He can feel Kris staring at him and wonders if Kris pictures Adam’s hand as the one who takes his and doesn’t let go.
“Feel so far away. Want to see your face. Are you even there? Can you show me? Can you make me believe?”
Kris’s voice rises and gains strength, only to break on the last note of ‘believe’ as if tortured and Adam can’t take it anymore, can’t bear hearing Kris so honest and open and plainly hurting. He wants to move, wants to run or reach forward and grab Kris in his arms, but can only cover his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking with his tears. He’s sobbing, sobbing¸ as Kris’s voice soars all around him, the piano and strings swelling and filling the air until he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move, the pounding of the notes beating against his heart, his soul. He feels torn, not in two, but into a million pieces, his heart shattering at the naked anguish surrounding him, suffocating him and tearing him apart as his thoughts collide against each other in his head.
In true Kris fashion, the outburst doesn’t last long, the song falling back down to its quiet beginnings as Kris sings again, his voice tired, resigned and holding a quiet plea for resolution.
“I need to know. I need to know.”
Kris hasn’t moved once while the song was playing and only now shifts his foot under the covers to press against Adam’s hip as Adam sits there and cries. The song starts to repeat and Adam stabs out blindly to cut it off, nearly knocking his computer off the couch in his haste to make it stop. He hides his face in the crook of his elbow, wrapping his other hand around his head to hold himself together, to keep from flying apart. Kris struggles from under the covers and crawls across the bed to lay his hand on Adam’s back.
“Adam-”
Adam shoots up, whirling around to face the other man as he scrubs his hands across his eyes. “No. This has to stop. Whatever we’re pretending is or isn’t there…this has to end. We can’t do this anymore.” He jabs at the computer to get the disc out and thrusts it angrily in Kris’s face. “This is killing you.”
Kris wraps his fingers around the disc, covering Adam’s hand. “Adam, I’m right here. I’m not dying.”
“Yes you are! Can’t you hear it?” Can’t you feel it?” He wipes his nose on his sleeve, swiping at his eyes again as he tries to free his hand from Kris’s. “I’m not doing this to you any more.”
“Adam, you aren’t doing anything to me. That’s not what this is about.” He squeezes his hand over Adam’s on the disc. “You’re not hurting me.”
“Kris, there is nothing but pure pain on this disc.”
“That’s not pain, Adam. That’s me questioning, seeking answers…looking for truth.”
“It’s pain, Kris.”
“Its growth, Adam.” “Growth isn’t supposed to hurt.”
Kris snorts out a huffed laugh. “That’s kind of the definition of growth, Adam.”
“Yeah well, I can’t be the cause of it. I can’t be the one making you do this.”
“You aren’t making me do anything, Adam. I’m here of my own free will. I’m here because I want to be.”
“At whose expense though, Kris? Yours? Katy’s? Your parents? You really want to put them through this? Put them through all this pain?”
“I kind of think it’s worth it. I kind of think you’re worth it, that we’re worth it.”
Adam shakes his head, backing away from Kris. “No, Kris, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kris waves the disc slightly, drawing Adam’s eyes. “That’s why I’m asking, Adam. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Find out what, exactly?”
Kris sighs, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck as he sits on the edge of the bed. He drops his hands to his lap and idly plays with the CD, rubbing his thumbs along the edges. “To find out if this is what my life is supposed to be.” He sighs deeply and raises his head to look at Adam. “To find out if you’re going to be with me, next to me, if I’m led down this path.”
Adam deflates. “I can’t, Kris. This isn’t my path to take.”
“You’re scared.”
“I don’t want to cause you any more pain than I already have. I don’t want to hurt Katy.”
“So you’d rather not try this? You’d rather not try to be with me just so Katy doesn’t get hurt? You’d rather give up on this because it might be hard?”
“That’s not it, Kris.” Adam shakes his head. “You don’t know what you want. What you’re asking. I’m a gay man. One-hundred percent out and not ashamed of it. If we were to get together, you’re whole life would change in ways you can’t even imagine. Are you really ready to change the rest of your life, the rest of your whole family’s life for this? For me?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Adam smiles a little wistfully. “You’re here because we’re friends, because it’s what you know, what you’re comfortable with in this insanity we’re part of right now. It won’t be like this in the real world.”
Kris chuckles. “That’s funny, because this is about the only thing lately that feels real. Not Katy, not my family back in Arkansas. You. You and me feels real…feels right. Feels like something I didn’t even know I was waiting for.”
“Kris…” Adam chuckles disbelievingly to himself. “Are you even the littlest bit gay? Do you really find me even the littlest bit attractive in a sexual way? And I do mean sexual in terms of my cock in your ass or your mouth sliding up and down on my cock until I come in your mouth. I don’t mean how good it feels when we collapse together on a sofa somewhere and you conk out on my chest.”
Kris winces and Adam calls him on it. “See! You can’t even listen to the words, how are you going to do the deeds?”
“Adam, you know it’s not like that. I’ve thought about it, I just don’t talk that way, don’t use those words.”
“Oh pu-lease!” Adam rolls his eyes. “You’ve thought of us together. Naked. Slippery and sweaty and horny as hell?”
“Uhm, yes?”
Adam props his hands on his hips and gives Kris a scathing look, sarcasm dripping freely. “Really.”
Kris matches his stance. “Yes, Adam, really.” They stand there, staring at each other, until Adam cocks an eyebrow and Kris caves, waving his hands to show defeat. “Fine, fine, yes, you’re right. I haven’t really gotten that specific when thinking about sex with you.”
Adam smiles in triumph, wondering in what fucked up world he’s actually happy a cute guy isn’t thinking about having sex with him.
“But I have thought about it.” Kris looks down at his feet, wriggling his toes in his socks. “I’ve thought about it a lot…kissing you. What it would feel like. How it would be different from Katy.” He looks up, shoving his hands in his front pockets as a light blush stains his cheeks. “I’ve wondered what you taste like.”
Adam takes in a deep, slow breath, his heart tripping over Kris’s words and heat pooling low in his stomach. “Kris…I don’t think you really mean that the way you think you do.”
“Oh no?”
“No! Did you even listen to the lyrics you just wrote?” Adam takes the CD from Kris and goes to his computer to play the song again, skipping ahead to the middle.
Roads in front of me, leading me astray. Are you leaving me or leading me away?
Adam pauses the recording and looks at Kris. “You think these feelings you’re having for me are leading you astray. That your God will leave you if you do this, if you be with me.”
Kris strides over to Adam, his eyes blazing. “You know that’s not true. You know I don’t feel that way about being homosexual. God is going to love me no matter what I do as long as I keep Him in my life, as long as I always turn to Him for guidance. That whole ‘astray’ line is because this new path I see is so different from what I thought my life would be like.”
Adam throws his hands wide. “Exactly! Your life isn’t supposed to be this way because you’re. not. gay! You can’t just throw away everything you have because of a few confusing feelings. You can’t just snap you’re fingers and change like that.”
Kris shakes his head, a stubborn look in his eyes. “It isn’t ‘just like that’, Adam. I’ve been feeling this way for a while now and you’re wrong. People grow. People change.” He stares Adam dead in the eye. “People fall in love.”
“Kris-“
“No, Adam, let me finish.” He grabs Adam’s arm and pulls him down to sit on the bed. “Do you know what I did tonight?”
“You went to write with Lindy and Mark.”
Kris nods. “Yeah, I went to write with them and nothing was working. I mean nothing. I couldn’t come up with a single line, a single lyric, and it was seriously stressing me out. I mean, I’ve never been blocked like that before, never been so stuck I could feel it clogging my throat.” Kris’s hands clench in frustration at the memory. “I mean, c’mon, I’m always feeling something, you know?”
Adam smirks a bit because, yeah, Kris is always feeling something and anybody can tell what it is just by looking at his face. Poker faces and Kris Allen are not in the same dictionary. “Wow. Frustrating, huh?”
Kris growls and flops back on the bed, covering his eyes with his arm. “You don’t even know. I felt like I was going to explode or something, like ants were crawling all underneath my skin.” He scrubs his eyes and leaves his hands covering his face. “Lindy said we should take a break, get some dinner or something, but I couldn’t…I couldn’t sit still, couldn’t not be moving.”
Adam reaches out and lays a hand on Kris’s chest, hating to see him so unsettled. Kris covers the hand with his own but keeps talking to the ceiling.
“So I walked. I walked and walked and walked.” He chuckles to himself, jostling their hands a bit. “I probably did, like, fifty laps around that block, Mark and Lindy looking at me each time I passed the window of the restaurant, probably thinking I was crazier than crazy. But I couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down.” He turns on his side to face Adam, keeping one hand tangled with Adam’s and using the other to prop his head up.
“All that time I was walking, I kept thinking ‘Call Adam. Call Adam. Call Adam.’ That’s what finally stopped me.”
“What, can’t walk and dial?” Adam claps his free hand over his mouth as Kris gives him the evil eye. “Sorry, I get snarky when I’m nervous and its five o’clock in the morning and my best friend is lying in my bed with bags under his eyes having an exi-”
Kris tugs on Adam’s hand he’s still holding, talking right over him. “What stopped me is I realized that I didn’t even once think of calling Katy. Not once. It didn’t even enter my head to talk to her. All I wanted to do was call you, hear your voice and know that I could come back here when I was done and be with you.” He links their fingers together, his voice a gruff whisper. “All that walking and I realized maybe I was walking the wrong path all along.”
He lets go of Adam’s hand and rolls back down to the bed. “We went back to the studio and I just laid there on the floor in the middle of the room, my head full of questions…full of you and Katy and direction and paths…and I didn’t even realize I had started playing until Mark set the mic up over my head. We recorded the song in like, forty-five minutes or something, never even stopping to write down the lyrics. It was so weird…I really didn’t feel like I was even there, like I was even doing anything but singing words someone else had put in my head.” He wipes his eyes tiredly. “It was so surreal.”
Adam stares at Kris, not even having the first clue what to do with all this information: the song, the lyrics, Kris’s admissions and his honesty. Sure, he’d fantasized about getting together with Kris, but that’s why they were called fantasies, because they were never going to happen, right? Now, Adam didn’t know what the hell to think. Kris was questioning his life with Katy? Questioning his own sexuality? Thinking about being with Adam in a man-on-man kind of way? It was too much, too many things to think about Adam was totally lost, totally confused.
“So what happens now?” He clears his throat, willing some of the nervousness from his voice. “We wait for God to give you an answer?”
Kris shakes his head. “God won’t give me the answers.”
“Excuse me?” Adam boggles. “Forgive my French, but then why the fuck did you ask him?”
Kris chuckles softly and sits up again, shifting to lean back against the headboard. “God doesn’t just hand you the solutions to all your problems, Adam. You have to figure them out for yourself using the tools he gave you.”
Adam crawls up next to Kris, their shoulders touching when he settles. “I so totally don’t understand.”
“God gave me the talent to come up with the lyrics to the song” Kris begins as he turns his head to look at Adam. “And he gave me the courage to come here and share it with you.” He brings his hand up to Adam’s cheek and turns it so they’re looking at each other. “Where we go from here is up to me.”
Adam swallows hard, Kris’s hand burning against his skin. “Up to you? I don’t get a say in any of this?”
Kris nods, his thumb stroking across Adam’s lips. “Of course you do.”
“And if I say no?” Adam whispers and closes his eyes, wondering how the hell he thinks he’ll ever be able to say no to this.
Kris doesn’t falter, just keeps running his thumb back and forth, making Adam’s lips tingle. “Then I’ll have my answer, won’t I?”
Adam whimpers. “Kris-” the words coming after cut off by Kris pressing his finger against Adam’s lips.
“Adam. Shush.” He leans in, placing his lips softly on top of Adams. “Don’t say no.”
Adam opens his mouth to welcome Kris’s tongue and he feels exactly how he did when listening to the song a few minutes ago. He’s surrounded by feeling, his emotions swelling to a crescendo as Kris deepens the kiss and pulls him even closer, their hands clasping each other’s faces as if to never let go. Adam knows he’s making pathetic noises, knows he sounds helpless and lost and scared but he really doesn’t care. Nothing has ever felt so right before, so completely comfortable and sexy and hot and he really, really, really wants to never stop kissing Kris Allen. Ever. But they have to breathe sometime and Adam takes advantage of the oxygen break to ask the question he hopes he knows the answer to.
“So? Find out what you need to know?”
Kris smiles, his face beaming and happy. He tugs Adam over to lay on top of him as he shifts down on the bed, pressing his obvious erection into Adam’s hip. “I’m taking the right path,” he whispers breathlessly as he reaches up for another kiss, his eyes sparkling. “And you taste like Twizzlers.”