Barely Hanging On The Edge Of Lonely (2/3)
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I wake up and bandage these scars
Adam rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. Exhaustion is starting to take its toll on him, but the seats from the waiting room in Milan airport aren't cut for sleep. He has to sit upright, one arm around his backpack and the other hugging himself, head low to avoid eye contact - he's sure he isn't that much known in Italy, but he can't risk it. One too many autographs to sign and he'll miss his plane back to the States. Rob found him a seat in the soonest flight back home, but Adam has been waiting for over two hours in this never ending layover of doom. He needs to do something, to relieve the stress, but he doesn't dare to move.
Adam sighs loudly. He places his sunglasses back on top of his nose; he's aware of how diva-like that is, but his eyes are swollen from all the crying he's made in the plane to Milan, from the tiredness and the lack of sleep. As much worried as he is about Kris' whereabouts - and he is worried sick - he has to care about his looks. They're part of the image he has to project, though he doubts the worn blue t-shirt and the baggy jeans he changed into as soon as he set foot in Italy are helping his case. He looks exactly like any other thirty-something guy flying back home.
There's a little girl restlessly moving by his side. She has hair like sand and bluer than blue eyes. Adam can't help but stare at her from time to time - she looks exactly like Kris' daughter would have if Katy hadn't had the miscarriage. When Adam recalls those dark days, he realizes that something had been off the entire time, with Katy, with their marriage and their life together, but neither of them had seen it coming until it'd been too late. Now Adam regrets not having been more attentive to all the signs - he could have saved Kris a lot of heartache.
His phone rings insistently in his front pocket. He breaks eye contact with the child, who's been staring curiously back at him as well, to fish for the device. His fingers are too big, too shaky, and he almost misses the call. But he doesn't, in the end; in his haste, he doesn't check who's calling.
"Adam," he hears a beat before he can say a proper hi. "Adam, where are you right now?"
"Mom," he breathes out, and it's a refreshing sensation in these dry times, to hear his mother's voice washing over him. "I'm waiting for my connection to California in Milan."
"They have no idea where he might be," she chokes. Adam feels new tears pooling in his eyes. "Adam, they're saying that if he doesn't show up in the next twenty-four hours, they'll start looking for--for--"
When Leila doesn't finish her sentence, Adam lets go of all his tears. He's crying in the middle of an airport in Europe, but he can't care less. "He'll be okay," he promises while he fights to control his hiccups. "I can feel it, mom. We're going to find him, and he'll be safe and sound and alive, I swear, mom."
A metallic voice starts speaking loud, drowning Leila's words. Adam catches the number and destination of his flight. "Mom," he sniffs. "My flight's being called. I'll be home in less than twelve hours."
"We need you," his mother whispers; Adam understands the underlying tones of what she's not saying - this family is broken and we need to mend it together, where family gathers much more meaning than what he's been used to understand while growing up.
Family now includes the Allens, and the Irahetas, and the Cooks, and the Girauds, and the Tiemanns. Adam is more than ready to come back to them and become their crying shoulder, even if there's no one to comfort him in the end.
But he doesn't need a shoulder to cry on. He needs Kris, and he won't stop until he sees him again, no matter what Adam has to go through.
but honestly I don't know if we'll survive
The shock is too much to take in, Kris finds out when he tries to understand what Katy's doing in the room. He doesn't get why he's been brought here, although Kris has a vague idea, based precisely in Katy's presence. But he never thought they'd be so bold as to harm him.
"Katy," he says, broken voice coming out from his parched throat. "I don't know what's going on, Katy, but please tell them to let me go, I haven't done anything."
But Katy just stares down at him, a darkness in her eyes like Kris has never seen before - and he's been through a lot with her in the decade they've been together. Kris shivers.
"We can proceed now," Katy says, neutral and impersonal, as if she hadn't spent half her life with him, as if Kris wasn't anything but a stranger in the middle of a foreign room.
"Proceed?" he inquires. He's long lost the ability to feel fear, and now all he wants is to get out of there, wherever he is, as soon as possible.
"You'll speak when you're asked to," the man who's brought him here orders. "Your answers will be short and precise. We don't want to hear your incessant rambling."
Kris is about to protest, but the man tugs at the chain linking the cuffs and Kris quiets immediately. He looks down at the ground with a frustrated frown but remains silent. There is little he can do right now; his heart beats so fast that he fears it's going to run out of his chest. Katy's words echo in his mind, her voice louder and louder until all he can hear is the resounding noise in his head. It takes him a while to catch himself, and by the time he's fully back in that room, more people have gathered together. They're all waiting for a sign; the man in charge of him keeps him with his head low, in an eternal gesture of submission. Kris hears the doors chiming, and the rumbling whispers in the room diffuse as someone's steps echo in the suddenly silent room.
"Bend down," Kris is ordered. He knows he has to obey, but the rebellious part of him tells him otherwise, so he stands as upright as his situation allows him to - the cuffs and the chains make it difficult for him to stand but he manages just fine, until the man tugs at his chains and forces him to hit the ground with his weak knees. "Bend down, I say."
Kris closes his eyes against the pain of the cold tiled floor underneath his already freezing jeans. He wonders if he's actually in another state that's not California. It wasn't this cold when fell asleep the night before - or at least he thinks or was the night before, but he can't tell the time in this fortress he's forced to stay in.
"Where's our guest?" a grave voice asks, low and growly. Kris shivers from a mixture of cold and the fear he believed he had cast away.
"He's here," Katy replies; Kris could have recognized her voice anywhere. "He's ready for the purifying process."
Kris blinks. Even though he's staring at the floor, he is aware of all the eyes in the room placed on him. If he wasn't sure before, now he is completely positive that he knows where he is. He controls the surge of nausea he feels rising in his throat. He thought it was all in the past, that he'd got rid of this when he signed the papers Katy sent him. Apparently he was mistaken.
Kris closes his eyes but that doesn't stop the tears from falling. He knows he's trapped, and for the first time the certainty that he's not going to make it out of here alive assaults him.
How can he, when the same mad men who brainwashed Katy and stole her from him not only have him but they also want him dead for trying to win her back?
now, pride is out the door
"No, I can't think of anyone who'd want to hurt Kris," Adam says patiently on the phone. He's scanning the luggage claiming room for the bag he's been forced to check in while in Milan. "I'll answer all those questions when I'm actually home, Pandora, please. I've flown over twenty hours, I've had no sleep and my best friend's missing," he adds, suppressing the need to complete that sentence with and if he doesn't show up right now half of my heart will be gone forever with him, but he doesn't because he isn't sure about where they stand in this moment, he isn't sure how many people Kris has actually told, how much longer Adam will have to hide and wait for re perfect moment to come. So he bites his lip and holds his tears inside, in that small room near his heart where they burn and bruise without dissolving, and he repeats, "I'll answer all those questions when I get home, Pandora. As soon as my bag gets out of this fucking plane, I'll be on my way."
He doesn't wait for Kris' new manager to reply. Adam retires the cell phone from his ear and presses it close. He doesn't care there are people staring at him, probably recognizing him; he just wants his bag with him so he can leave.
"You're Adam Lambert," he hears at his back, when he has finally spotted his bag. He turns slightly and finds a child, not older than six or eight, staring up at him. Adam reaches blindly for his bag as he smiles sweetly.
"That I am."
"I'm a big fan!" the kid exclaims. "Can I have your autograph?"
"Christopher," a woman interrupts then; Adam thinks she's the mother for the physical resemblance. "Christopher, you can't go around bothering other people."
"But it's Adam Lambert," the child says, as if that explained everything. "He greeted me back!"
"That I did," Adam hasn't let go of his smile, the first true one in a whole day. "I'll sign you an autograph. Your name is the same as my best friend's, by the way."
"Mine's written with a c," the boy states categorically. "Not like Kris Allen."
Adam has to fix his gaze somewhere to keep his feelings under control. Just hearing the name makes him all teary. "You're too young to be a fan," he replies as politely as he can, taking the notebook the kid has produced out of thin air.
"Mom was a fan first," the kid assures Adam. "She says she made me listen to your music when I was still inside of her."
Adam signs on a blank page, making sure to write a beautiful dedication as well. He then looks up and his eyes find the mother's. "Thanks," he whispers. The woman reaches out and takes the kid away with another smile. The boy waves goodbye and Adam feels his heart pounding in his chest. He has never been good at farewells.
you thought an angel swept you off your feet
Kris is still staring at the ground when the voice quiets. He wants to shift, but he's afraid one single movement might unfold havoc. So he keeps his head down, his neck hurting from the forced angle, for as long as he can.
"We're here to judge and condemn Kris Allen," the same man says in his inflexible voice. "He leads a life that's an insult to our community, and therefore he must be punished."
Kris would be lying if he said he weren't scared. But so many years of performing for large audiences have helped me to master the art to control his shivers; though deep inside he is terrifyingly aware of how endangered he is, his external signals don't reveal that. It could become a double edged arm, he knows.
"Katy," the man calls. "Please stand up and tell your brothers and sisters about this man's sins."
Kris can't help lifting his face to look at the woman he married when they were both too young. This time no one forces him to stare at the ground; his neck cracks when he keeps the new posture.
Katy looks beautiful under the bright light bathing the room. For a second, Kris forgets what's going on, why he's here on his knees, to take her presence in - the yellow gleam in her long hair, the green deepness in her wide eyes, the healthy tan in her soft skin. Hadn't Kris known better, joining this community would have been the best thing to ever happen to Katy. But Kris has been on the receiving end of far too many fights and riots because of them, he's seen what she's truly become because of them, to be fooled.
It's strange, the river of thoughts that floods his mind in a moment like this one, when he can't anticipate what's going to happen. He's so used to have his life scheduled that his first reaction upon being judged by a jury that is evidently partial is to think where he was supposed to be at that precise moment in time. Kris realizes in a split second that he doesn't even know which day it is. He could have slept for days for all he knows. He only remembers vaguely waking up in the middle of the night and fighting to remain in the bed; he remembers scratching someone's arm and falling asleep with something pressed against his nose. It's only now that he realizes he fought back his own kidnap and failed.
"Father," Kris hears, and if he hasn't been staring at Katy he would've sworn it wasn't her speaking, her voice sounding so devoid of all emotion, so cold and impersonal that it scares him. "Father, I was married to this man for nearly ten years. I know that the marriage wasn't legal at the eyes of our Lord," she is fast to add, "and that's why you allowed me to dissolve it. For ten years he fooled me into thinking he loved me, when all he was doing was giving into the most deviated tendencies."
Kris suppresses the need to shake his head in surprise. He isn't sure of what Katy is talking about, but he knows it's really important for all the people congregated around them - and how hasn't he seen all those spectators of his downfall before? - and he's expecting reproving noises from all of them.
"What kind of signs did you see to lead you to think like that?" asked someone at Kris' right.
"You all know who he became after that horrid show," Katy explains. Kris has the feeling she's been sharing intimate details of their life together with these strangers. "It was all interviews and shows and whenever he was involved I couldn't go with Kris."
"Katy, we all know how much you've suffered all this time, but it's important that you say all the names so we can understand the graveness of this all."
Kris begins to tremble against his own will. Terrified as he is, he's become aware that there are very few chances of him getting out of this situation unscathed. And he has the feeling that things are going to get uglier than they already are.
"Yes, Father," Katy agrees. "Kris was busy with a life I had no place in, and he was sharing it with-with-Adam Lambert." There are gasps and sharp intakes of breath all around the room. Kris closes his eyes. "Adam is this flamboyant, obnoxious homosexual man. At first I wasn't worried at all, and maybe it is my fault after all, that they became so intimate. They were best friends before I could realize what was going on; they were touring together where I couldn't go. Adam changed my husband."
"In what sense did Adam Lambert change your husband?" the same man that seemed in charge of the situation asks. Kris fears the answer even though he senses what it may be.
"Adam turned my husband gay as well, and made him cheat on me while we were still married. I couldn't see it before meeting this community, but now it's so clear that it pains me to have been so blind," Katy affirms.
Kris can't take it any longer. He whips his head up before his guardian can stop him and looks straight into Katy's eyes. There is a vacuity in her beautiful blue eyes that gets to him, but he tries to look past it, right into her very core. "It's now that you're blind, Katy. Can't you see what they've turned you into? Can't you see they've put all those ideas in your mind?"
The hand on his neck is back in a matter of seconds, and this time is even less gentle than before. When the ache becomes too much, Kris feels the edges of his own world fading into black.
at sundown on the freeway is no place for goodbyes
Adam reaches his own house in a taxi ride from LAX. The trip is silent; he spends a large part of it staring out of the window and reminiscing about the better old days when coming back home meant sharing that very same taxi with Kris. But those times are long lost in his memories, and Adam can't help but sigh against the glass. The driver doesn't make any comment, though Adam can hear the wheels in his mind turning - the driver wants to ask if it's really him, wants to know about his life, wants to share the few seconds of glory that driving Adam Lambert will get him. But Adam isn't ready for that kind of recognition just now - he feels gross after over twenty-four hours of flying almost non-stop, he feels down and depressed, and all he wants to do is set foot in his house and cry the tears he has been fighting ever since he got that call.
There is a police vehicle waiting outside his block. Adam owns a house, but he'd rather spend his time in his small apartment downtown, where he's been living for years before American Idol happened, and it's where he's told his mother he'd go. He frowns - he doesn't know why he'd need police protection, but it seems like someone has asked for.
"Twenty seventy," the driver says. Adam isn't about to argue about the price, he just throws a couple of bills onto the passenger's seat and escapes the car. He needs fresh air, even if Los Angeles has anything but fresh. He sprints up to the front door of the building, only to be stopped by one of the policemen guarding the entrance.
"Sorry, sir, identification, please," he says. Adam wants to snort, but he represses the sound. He knows he must be unrecognizable under layers and layers of exhaustion and the lack of make up, so he just lifts one hand and stops for a second.
"I have my passport inside my bag," he says. "Let me get it."
"Sure," the policeman replies. Adam can hear a hint of recognition in his voice, but he understands that the agent can't overlook the procedure. He rummages in his bag until he finds the abuse passport he's been showing constantly in these past hours. He takes it out and gives it to the man. "Okay, Mr Lambert, you can come up to your apartment. Sorry for the inconvenient treatment, but one can never know these days, and I'm sure you know how these things go when someone's missing."
"Yeah, I know," Adam agrees. He sighs as the policeman opens the door and lets him in. it's not that Adam knows from experience the security process when someone disappears off the face of the Earth, since this is the first time he loses a person so close to him that he's felt the need to travel half the world - but when they were touring that summer after Idol, there were some steps to follow if any of them went missing.
The lift takes a whole lifetime to get back to the hall, Adam finds out. He's tapping his feet on the floor, and it's only when the doors open and he enters the elevator that he realizes he's been tapping Live Like We're Dying, completed with some humming as well. It's been eight years since that single hit the charts, but it's still that one big single Kris managed to make. And as of lately they've been talking about their golden days, when no worry could faze them because they owned the world. It's only normal, Adam tells to himself, it's only normal that he finds it easier to sing along one of the songs from happier times.
Leila is waiting for him at the door of his own apartment. His mother has always had a key to this flat, and Adam himself asked her to come around and take care of his plants. Right now, Adam can't be thankful enough to the Heavens for having sent him such an amazing aid. When he's about to break into a run towards his mother's arms, Kim and Daniel peek out from behind her, and Adam feels tears spring to his eyes.
"Mom," he says, running anyway. He hugs her tightly, only to move up from Leila to Kim, who clings to him with her big, beautiful eyes dim and almost lifeless. "Kim, Daniel," he continues. "Let's get this inside, okay?"
"Sure," Leila agrees. She turns around to help Kim, who seems unable to walk on her own, and leaves Adam alone with Daniel in the threshold.
"Before you get inside," Daniel says, gaze lost somewhere above Adam's right shoulder. "It's a complete mess. Mom can't stop crying. And your brother might have broken a couple of window frames while relieving some of his pressure."
"And what about you, Daniel?" Adam asks. He isn't worried about the state of his apartment - after all, all damages can be fixed - but Daniel seems too collected, and Adam knows that Kris' baby brother is usually the most emotional of them all. "How are you?"
"Someone has to be strong," Daniel shrugs, holding the door open to help Adam get inside. And while the answer doesn't satisfy Adam, he understands where Daniel is coming from. "We've all been thinking about who might want to hurt my brother, but we've reached no conclusion."
"I've been thinking the entire trip back here," Adam confesses. He's walking down his hall and almost reaching the living room, Daniel hot on his heels. "And it's just unfortunate, after all Kris has been through, you know."
"Unfortunate is a word we haven't used here yet," they both hear. When Adam spins around, he finds Neil standing tall against the kitchen door, a cup of coffee in his hands. "Our choices have been a little bit more-colorful, if I may say."
"I bet so, if you're involved," Adam jokes, and it's a weird feeling, to want to laugh when nobody knows where Kris is, but when Neil smiles softly, Adam finds out that maybe it isn't too bad. "But, I mean, you know-After all that's been going on, Katy leaving him for those crazies, this is just, like, the top of the icing. And I can't think about a single person who might want to hurt him after all, he's such an amazing human being, but I bet we need to-"
"Let's do something," Daniel interrupts. "Adam, you go to the living room, greet everyone and get rid of those horrid bags; Neil, you go prepare more coffee. We'll need it if we're going to dig in this situation."
Adam has to agree, but his feet refuse to move on their own accord. It's like he's stuck to the ground, and there's a little bubble of light above his head.
"Fucking shit," he exclaims, dropping the bag on his shoulder noisily to the ground. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. "
"What?" Neil and Daniel ask at the same time.
"I need an agent, or someone, I don't care," Adam demands. His hands are trembling so hard that he can't stop them. "I think I know who might have kidnapped Kris. God, the answer's been here all along!"
sink like a stone
There is only darkness again when Kris comes to consciousness again. He's becoming used to this routine of awakening somewhere he doesn't know, it's been the constant for some time now. He is no longer able to tell how many days have passed, or how many times he's fainted and regained his consciousness since he passed out during that trial where he listened to Katy say those lies about him.
He has to admit, though, that there were parts of truth in her built tale. Kris is ready to accept that he has been spending a lot of his spare time with Adam - he also is ready to accept that part of that was thrown away in a drunken stupor to chase away the ghosts of a marriage that was crumbling down before their eyes. Kris never thought anything like this would ever happen to him - these events are always inspiration for movies, never real life happenings. Kris wants to sigh, but even the air in his lungs burns to be breathed.
The man that had been there before is no longer sharing the small space with him. Kris remembers clearly the moment when another giant man entered the room and picked the other prisoner - because that's what they are - as if he were some sort of bale that could be thrown around. Kris hasn't seen him again, and though he suspects what has happened to him, Kris can't dwell too much into it. He's in a very precarious state of mind the way it is now, he doesn't need additional pressure put onto his shoulders.
I always played you songs to say what I never could
There's a stripe of white ache that flashes across Adam's chest whenever he looks at Kim Allen. He can see every tiny second of her life splashed in her beautifully pained eyes. He suspects it has to do with the fact that his son is missing, and even though he's already told the police all he's realized in a matter of seconds Adam knows it'll take them time to organize a team to rescue Kris. He, just like everyone else in that very same room, is afraid it'll be too late by the time they breach for Kris.
"You really love him," he hears. He flinches when a hand lands on his shoulder. Adam's been having trouble with being touched as of lately - ever since he was told that maybe Kris would never touch him again. "Nobody else has traveled half a world back home."
"Nobody else was in Asia, Daniel," Adam manages to reply without choking.
"Allison has yet to call back, and Matt said he wished he could find a spare moment to come help us but his tour is so demanding. Cale-" Daniel trails off, Adam can't blame him. Cale Mills has proved to be a really bad influence these past years - it was him who introduced Katy into the world that swept her away, and it was him who kept Kris in the dark about it for as long as he could.
"I'll always come when any of you need me, Daniel. You're family," Adam states, as if that's self explanatory. And maybe it is, because Daniel nods before repeating himself again.
"You truly love him, and I really hope he comes back to us so I can kick some sense into him and make him realize he loves you too." Daniel is insistent, he's always been - or at least for the many years Adam's known him. He will never leave a subject he deems important until it's thoroughly studied. Adam suspects he's Daniel's newest project, and even if the youngest Allen is right and Adam might feel something remotely beyond friendship for Kris - not that Adam's going to admit to it, anyway - Adam knows Daniel won't leave him alone.
"He's my best friend, you know," Adam sighs.
"You know what they say?" Daniel asks in a soft voice.
"What do they say?" Adam decides to follow him, wherever the conversation might take him.
"That it's better to fall for your best friend," Daniel muses wisely. "That way, you've found the perfect partner to share your life with. Who knows you better than your best friend?"
Adam wants to retort, but after ten years he can't suddenly claim all his actions from the past are just some mirage - he's felt this way for Kris ever since they first met, sitting together at the theatre during Hollywood Week.
"We'll find him," Daniel finishes. "I can feel it in my gut, Adam. We'll find him and he'll be alright."
"I hope so, Daniel. I hope so."
next >>
I wake up and bandage these scars
Adam rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. Exhaustion is starting to take its toll on him, but the seats from the waiting room in Milan airport aren't cut for sleep. He has to sit upright, one arm around his backpack and the other hugging himself, head low to avoid eye contact - he's sure he isn't that much known in Italy, but he can't risk it. One too many autographs to sign and he'll miss his plane back to the States. Rob found him a seat in the soonest flight back home, but Adam has been waiting for over two hours in this never ending layover of doom. He needs to do something, to relieve the stress, but he doesn't dare to move.
Adam sighs loudly. He places his sunglasses back on top of his nose; he's aware of how diva-like that is, but his eyes are swollen from all the crying he's made in the plane to Milan, from the tiredness and the lack of sleep. As much worried as he is about Kris' whereabouts - and he is worried sick - he has to care about his looks. They're part of the image he has to project, though he doubts the worn blue t-shirt and the baggy jeans he changed into as soon as he set foot in Italy are helping his case. He looks exactly like any other thirty-something guy flying back home.
There's a little girl restlessly moving by his side. She has hair like sand and bluer than blue eyes. Adam can't help but stare at her from time to time - she looks exactly like Kris' daughter would have if Katy hadn't had the miscarriage. When Adam recalls those dark days, he realizes that something had been off the entire time, with Katy, with their marriage and their life together, but neither of them had seen it coming until it'd been too late. Now Adam regrets not having been more attentive to all the signs - he could have saved Kris a lot of heartache.
His phone rings insistently in his front pocket. He breaks eye contact with the child, who's been staring curiously back at him as well, to fish for the device. His fingers are too big, too shaky, and he almost misses the call. But he doesn't, in the end; in his haste, he doesn't check who's calling.
"Adam," he hears a beat before he can say a proper hi. "Adam, where are you right now?"
"Mom," he breathes out, and it's a refreshing sensation in these dry times, to hear his mother's voice washing over him. "I'm waiting for my connection to California in Milan."
"They have no idea where he might be," she chokes. Adam feels new tears pooling in his eyes. "Adam, they're saying that if he doesn't show up in the next twenty-four hours, they'll start looking for--for--"
When Leila doesn't finish her sentence, Adam lets go of all his tears. He's crying in the middle of an airport in Europe, but he can't care less. "He'll be okay," he promises while he fights to control his hiccups. "I can feel it, mom. We're going to find him, and he'll be safe and sound and alive, I swear, mom."
A metallic voice starts speaking loud, drowning Leila's words. Adam catches the number and destination of his flight. "Mom," he sniffs. "My flight's being called. I'll be home in less than twelve hours."
"We need you," his mother whispers; Adam understands the underlying tones of what she's not saying - this family is broken and we need to mend it together, where family gathers much more meaning than what he's been used to understand while growing up.
Family now includes the Allens, and the Irahetas, and the Cooks, and the Girauds, and the Tiemanns. Adam is more than ready to come back to them and become their crying shoulder, even if there's no one to comfort him in the end.
But he doesn't need a shoulder to cry on. He needs Kris, and he won't stop until he sees him again, no matter what Adam has to go through.
but honestly I don't know if we'll survive
The shock is too much to take in, Kris finds out when he tries to understand what Katy's doing in the room. He doesn't get why he's been brought here, although Kris has a vague idea, based precisely in Katy's presence. But he never thought they'd be so bold as to harm him.
"Katy," he says, broken voice coming out from his parched throat. "I don't know what's going on, Katy, but please tell them to let me go, I haven't done anything."
But Katy just stares down at him, a darkness in her eyes like Kris has never seen before - and he's been through a lot with her in the decade they've been together. Kris shivers.
"We can proceed now," Katy says, neutral and impersonal, as if she hadn't spent half her life with him, as if Kris wasn't anything but a stranger in the middle of a foreign room.
"Proceed?" he inquires. He's long lost the ability to feel fear, and now all he wants is to get out of there, wherever he is, as soon as possible.
"You'll speak when you're asked to," the man who's brought him here orders. "Your answers will be short and precise. We don't want to hear your incessant rambling."
Kris is about to protest, but the man tugs at the chain linking the cuffs and Kris quiets immediately. He looks down at the ground with a frustrated frown but remains silent. There is little he can do right now; his heart beats so fast that he fears it's going to run out of his chest. Katy's words echo in his mind, her voice louder and louder until all he can hear is the resounding noise in his head. It takes him a while to catch himself, and by the time he's fully back in that room, more people have gathered together. They're all waiting for a sign; the man in charge of him keeps him with his head low, in an eternal gesture of submission. Kris hears the doors chiming, and the rumbling whispers in the room diffuse as someone's steps echo in the suddenly silent room.
"Bend down," Kris is ordered. He knows he has to obey, but the rebellious part of him tells him otherwise, so he stands as upright as his situation allows him to - the cuffs and the chains make it difficult for him to stand but he manages just fine, until the man tugs at his chains and forces him to hit the ground with his weak knees. "Bend down, I say."
Kris closes his eyes against the pain of the cold tiled floor underneath his already freezing jeans. He wonders if he's actually in another state that's not California. It wasn't this cold when fell asleep the night before - or at least he thinks or was the night before, but he can't tell the time in this fortress he's forced to stay in.
"Where's our guest?" a grave voice asks, low and growly. Kris shivers from a mixture of cold and the fear he believed he had cast away.
"He's here," Katy replies; Kris could have recognized her voice anywhere. "He's ready for the purifying process."
Kris blinks. Even though he's staring at the floor, he is aware of all the eyes in the room placed on him. If he wasn't sure before, now he is completely positive that he knows where he is. He controls the surge of nausea he feels rising in his throat. He thought it was all in the past, that he'd got rid of this when he signed the papers Katy sent him. Apparently he was mistaken.
Kris closes his eyes but that doesn't stop the tears from falling. He knows he's trapped, and for the first time the certainty that he's not going to make it out of here alive assaults him.
How can he, when the same mad men who brainwashed Katy and stole her from him not only have him but they also want him dead for trying to win her back?
now, pride is out the door
"No, I can't think of anyone who'd want to hurt Kris," Adam says patiently on the phone. He's scanning the luggage claiming room for the bag he's been forced to check in while in Milan. "I'll answer all those questions when I'm actually home, Pandora, please. I've flown over twenty hours, I've had no sleep and my best friend's missing," he adds, suppressing the need to complete that sentence with and if he doesn't show up right now half of my heart will be gone forever with him, but he doesn't because he isn't sure about where they stand in this moment, he isn't sure how many people Kris has actually told, how much longer Adam will have to hide and wait for re perfect moment to come. So he bites his lip and holds his tears inside, in that small room near his heart where they burn and bruise without dissolving, and he repeats, "I'll answer all those questions when I get home, Pandora. As soon as my bag gets out of this fucking plane, I'll be on my way."
He doesn't wait for Kris' new manager to reply. Adam retires the cell phone from his ear and presses it close. He doesn't care there are people staring at him, probably recognizing him; he just wants his bag with him so he can leave.
"You're Adam Lambert," he hears at his back, when he has finally spotted his bag. He turns slightly and finds a child, not older than six or eight, staring up at him. Adam reaches blindly for his bag as he smiles sweetly.
"That I am."
"I'm a big fan!" the kid exclaims. "Can I have your autograph?"
"Christopher," a woman interrupts then; Adam thinks she's the mother for the physical resemblance. "Christopher, you can't go around bothering other people."
"But it's Adam Lambert," the child says, as if that explained everything. "He greeted me back!"
"That I did," Adam hasn't let go of his smile, the first true one in a whole day. "I'll sign you an autograph. Your name is the same as my best friend's, by the way."
"Mine's written with a c," the boy states categorically. "Not like Kris Allen."
Adam has to fix his gaze somewhere to keep his feelings under control. Just hearing the name makes him all teary. "You're too young to be a fan," he replies as politely as he can, taking the notebook the kid has produced out of thin air.
"Mom was a fan first," the kid assures Adam. "She says she made me listen to your music when I was still inside of her."
Adam signs on a blank page, making sure to write a beautiful dedication as well. He then looks up and his eyes find the mother's. "Thanks," he whispers. The woman reaches out and takes the kid away with another smile. The boy waves goodbye and Adam feels his heart pounding in his chest. He has never been good at farewells.
you thought an angel swept you off your feet
Kris is still staring at the ground when the voice quiets. He wants to shift, but he's afraid one single movement might unfold havoc. So he keeps his head down, his neck hurting from the forced angle, for as long as he can.
"We're here to judge and condemn Kris Allen," the same man says in his inflexible voice. "He leads a life that's an insult to our community, and therefore he must be punished."
Kris would be lying if he said he weren't scared. But so many years of performing for large audiences have helped me to master the art to control his shivers; though deep inside he is terrifyingly aware of how endangered he is, his external signals don't reveal that. It could become a double edged arm, he knows.
"Katy," the man calls. "Please stand up and tell your brothers and sisters about this man's sins."
Kris can't help lifting his face to look at the woman he married when they were both too young. This time no one forces him to stare at the ground; his neck cracks when he keeps the new posture.
Katy looks beautiful under the bright light bathing the room. For a second, Kris forgets what's going on, why he's here on his knees, to take her presence in - the yellow gleam in her long hair, the green deepness in her wide eyes, the healthy tan in her soft skin. Hadn't Kris known better, joining this community would have been the best thing to ever happen to Katy. But Kris has been on the receiving end of far too many fights and riots because of them, he's seen what she's truly become because of them, to be fooled.
It's strange, the river of thoughts that floods his mind in a moment like this one, when he can't anticipate what's going to happen. He's so used to have his life scheduled that his first reaction upon being judged by a jury that is evidently partial is to think where he was supposed to be at that precise moment in time. Kris realizes in a split second that he doesn't even know which day it is. He could have slept for days for all he knows. He only remembers vaguely waking up in the middle of the night and fighting to remain in the bed; he remembers scratching someone's arm and falling asleep with something pressed against his nose. It's only now that he realizes he fought back his own kidnap and failed.
"Father," Kris hears, and if he hasn't been staring at Katy he would've sworn it wasn't her speaking, her voice sounding so devoid of all emotion, so cold and impersonal that it scares him. "Father, I was married to this man for nearly ten years. I know that the marriage wasn't legal at the eyes of our Lord," she is fast to add, "and that's why you allowed me to dissolve it. For ten years he fooled me into thinking he loved me, when all he was doing was giving into the most deviated tendencies."
Kris suppresses the need to shake his head in surprise. He isn't sure of what Katy is talking about, but he knows it's really important for all the people congregated around them - and how hasn't he seen all those spectators of his downfall before? - and he's expecting reproving noises from all of them.
"What kind of signs did you see to lead you to think like that?" asked someone at Kris' right.
"You all know who he became after that horrid show," Katy explains. Kris has the feeling she's been sharing intimate details of their life together with these strangers. "It was all interviews and shows and whenever he was involved I couldn't go with Kris."
"Katy, we all know how much you've suffered all this time, but it's important that you say all the names so we can understand the graveness of this all."
Kris begins to tremble against his own will. Terrified as he is, he's become aware that there are very few chances of him getting out of this situation unscathed. And he has the feeling that things are going to get uglier than they already are.
"Yes, Father," Katy agrees. "Kris was busy with a life I had no place in, and he was sharing it with-with-Adam Lambert." There are gasps and sharp intakes of breath all around the room. Kris closes his eyes. "Adam is this flamboyant, obnoxious homosexual man. At first I wasn't worried at all, and maybe it is my fault after all, that they became so intimate. They were best friends before I could realize what was going on; they were touring together where I couldn't go. Adam changed my husband."
"In what sense did Adam Lambert change your husband?" the same man that seemed in charge of the situation asks. Kris fears the answer even though he senses what it may be.
"Adam turned my husband gay as well, and made him cheat on me while we were still married. I couldn't see it before meeting this community, but now it's so clear that it pains me to have been so blind," Katy affirms.
Kris can't take it any longer. He whips his head up before his guardian can stop him and looks straight into Katy's eyes. There is a vacuity in her beautiful blue eyes that gets to him, but he tries to look past it, right into her very core. "It's now that you're blind, Katy. Can't you see what they've turned you into? Can't you see they've put all those ideas in your mind?"
The hand on his neck is back in a matter of seconds, and this time is even less gentle than before. When the ache becomes too much, Kris feels the edges of his own world fading into black.
at sundown on the freeway is no place for goodbyes
Adam reaches his own house in a taxi ride from LAX. The trip is silent; he spends a large part of it staring out of the window and reminiscing about the better old days when coming back home meant sharing that very same taxi with Kris. But those times are long lost in his memories, and Adam can't help but sigh against the glass. The driver doesn't make any comment, though Adam can hear the wheels in his mind turning - the driver wants to ask if it's really him, wants to know about his life, wants to share the few seconds of glory that driving Adam Lambert will get him. But Adam isn't ready for that kind of recognition just now - he feels gross after over twenty-four hours of flying almost non-stop, he feels down and depressed, and all he wants to do is set foot in his house and cry the tears he has been fighting ever since he got that call.
There is a police vehicle waiting outside his block. Adam owns a house, but he'd rather spend his time in his small apartment downtown, where he's been living for years before American Idol happened, and it's where he's told his mother he'd go. He frowns - he doesn't know why he'd need police protection, but it seems like someone has asked for.
"Twenty seventy," the driver says. Adam isn't about to argue about the price, he just throws a couple of bills onto the passenger's seat and escapes the car. He needs fresh air, even if Los Angeles has anything but fresh. He sprints up to the front door of the building, only to be stopped by one of the policemen guarding the entrance.
"Sorry, sir, identification, please," he says. Adam wants to snort, but he represses the sound. He knows he must be unrecognizable under layers and layers of exhaustion and the lack of make up, so he just lifts one hand and stops for a second.
"I have my passport inside my bag," he says. "Let me get it."
"Sure," the policeman replies. Adam can hear a hint of recognition in his voice, but he understands that the agent can't overlook the procedure. He rummages in his bag until he finds the abuse passport he's been showing constantly in these past hours. He takes it out and gives it to the man. "Okay, Mr Lambert, you can come up to your apartment. Sorry for the inconvenient treatment, but one can never know these days, and I'm sure you know how these things go when someone's missing."
"Yeah, I know," Adam agrees. He sighs as the policeman opens the door and lets him in. it's not that Adam knows from experience the security process when someone disappears off the face of the Earth, since this is the first time he loses a person so close to him that he's felt the need to travel half the world - but when they were touring that summer after Idol, there were some steps to follow if any of them went missing.
The lift takes a whole lifetime to get back to the hall, Adam finds out. He's tapping his feet on the floor, and it's only when the doors open and he enters the elevator that he realizes he's been tapping Live Like We're Dying, completed with some humming as well. It's been eight years since that single hit the charts, but it's still that one big single Kris managed to make. And as of lately they've been talking about their golden days, when no worry could faze them because they owned the world. It's only normal, Adam tells to himself, it's only normal that he finds it easier to sing along one of the songs from happier times.
Leila is waiting for him at the door of his own apartment. His mother has always had a key to this flat, and Adam himself asked her to come around and take care of his plants. Right now, Adam can't be thankful enough to the Heavens for having sent him such an amazing aid. When he's about to break into a run towards his mother's arms, Kim and Daniel peek out from behind her, and Adam feels tears spring to his eyes.
"Mom," he says, running anyway. He hugs her tightly, only to move up from Leila to Kim, who clings to him with her big, beautiful eyes dim and almost lifeless. "Kim, Daniel," he continues. "Let's get this inside, okay?"
"Sure," Leila agrees. She turns around to help Kim, who seems unable to walk on her own, and leaves Adam alone with Daniel in the threshold.
"Before you get inside," Daniel says, gaze lost somewhere above Adam's right shoulder. "It's a complete mess. Mom can't stop crying. And your brother might have broken a couple of window frames while relieving some of his pressure."
"And what about you, Daniel?" Adam asks. He isn't worried about the state of his apartment - after all, all damages can be fixed - but Daniel seems too collected, and Adam knows that Kris' baby brother is usually the most emotional of them all. "How are you?"
"Someone has to be strong," Daniel shrugs, holding the door open to help Adam get inside. And while the answer doesn't satisfy Adam, he understands where Daniel is coming from. "We've all been thinking about who might want to hurt my brother, but we've reached no conclusion."
"I've been thinking the entire trip back here," Adam confesses. He's walking down his hall and almost reaching the living room, Daniel hot on his heels. "And it's just unfortunate, after all Kris has been through, you know."
"Unfortunate is a word we haven't used here yet," they both hear. When Adam spins around, he finds Neil standing tall against the kitchen door, a cup of coffee in his hands. "Our choices have been a little bit more-colorful, if I may say."
"I bet so, if you're involved," Adam jokes, and it's a weird feeling, to want to laugh when nobody knows where Kris is, but when Neil smiles softly, Adam finds out that maybe it isn't too bad. "But, I mean, you know-After all that's been going on, Katy leaving him for those crazies, this is just, like, the top of the icing. And I can't think about a single person who might want to hurt him after all, he's such an amazing human being, but I bet we need to-"
"Let's do something," Daniel interrupts. "Adam, you go to the living room, greet everyone and get rid of those horrid bags; Neil, you go prepare more coffee. We'll need it if we're going to dig in this situation."
Adam has to agree, but his feet refuse to move on their own accord. It's like he's stuck to the ground, and there's a little bubble of light above his head.
"Fucking shit," he exclaims, dropping the bag on his shoulder noisily to the ground. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. "
"What?" Neil and Daniel ask at the same time.
"I need an agent, or someone, I don't care," Adam demands. His hands are trembling so hard that he can't stop them. "I think I know who might have kidnapped Kris. God, the answer's been here all along!"
sink like a stone
There is only darkness again when Kris comes to consciousness again. He's becoming used to this routine of awakening somewhere he doesn't know, it's been the constant for some time now. He is no longer able to tell how many days have passed, or how many times he's fainted and regained his consciousness since he passed out during that trial where he listened to Katy say those lies about him.
He has to admit, though, that there were parts of truth in her built tale. Kris is ready to accept that he has been spending a lot of his spare time with Adam - he also is ready to accept that part of that was thrown away in a drunken stupor to chase away the ghosts of a marriage that was crumbling down before their eyes. Kris never thought anything like this would ever happen to him - these events are always inspiration for movies, never real life happenings. Kris wants to sigh, but even the air in his lungs burns to be breathed.
The man that had been there before is no longer sharing the small space with him. Kris remembers clearly the moment when another giant man entered the room and picked the other prisoner - because that's what they are - as if he were some sort of bale that could be thrown around. Kris hasn't seen him again, and though he suspects what has happened to him, Kris can't dwell too much into it. He's in a very precarious state of mind the way it is now, he doesn't need additional pressure put onto his shoulders.
I always played you songs to say what I never could
There's a stripe of white ache that flashes across Adam's chest whenever he looks at Kim Allen. He can see every tiny second of her life splashed in her beautifully pained eyes. He suspects it has to do with the fact that his son is missing, and even though he's already told the police all he's realized in a matter of seconds Adam knows it'll take them time to organize a team to rescue Kris. He, just like everyone else in that very same room, is afraid it'll be too late by the time they breach for Kris.
"You really love him," he hears. He flinches when a hand lands on his shoulder. Adam's been having trouble with being touched as of lately - ever since he was told that maybe Kris would never touch him again. "Nobody else has traveled half a world back home."
"Nobody else was in Asia, Daniel," Adam manages to reply without choking.
"Allison has yet to call back, and Matt said he wished he could find a spare moment to come help us but his tour is so demanding. Cale-" Daniel trails off, Adam can't blame him. Cale Mills has proved to be a really bad influence these past years - it was him who introduced Katy into the world that swept her away, and it was him who kept Kris in the dark about it for as long as he could.
"I'll always come when any of you need me, Daniel. You're family," Adam states, as if that's self explanatory. And maybe it is, because Daniel nods before repeating himself again.
"You truly love him, and I really hope he comes back to us so I can kick some sense into him and make him realize he loves you too." Daniel is insistent, he's always been - or at least for the many years Adam's known him. He will never leave a subject he deems important until it's thoroughly studied. Adam suspects he's Daniel's newest project, and even if the youngest Allen is right and Adam might feel something remotely beyond friendship for Kris - not that Adam's going to admit to it, anyway - Adam knows Daniel won't leave him alone.
"He's my best friend, you know," Adam sighs.
"You know what they say?" Daniel asks in a soft voice.
"What do they say?" Adam decides to follow him, wherever the conversation might take him.
"That it's better to fall for your best friend," Daniel muses wisely. "That way, you've found the perfect partner to share your life with. Who knows you better than your best friend?"
Adam wants to retort, but after ten years he can't suddenly claim all his actions from the past are just some mirage - he's felt this way for Kris ever since they first met, sitting together at the theatre during Hollywood Week.
"We'll find him," Daniel finishes. "I can feel it in my gut, Adam. We'll find him and he'll be alright."
"I hope so, Daniel. I hope so."
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