FIC: "Tomorrow Takes Me Higher" (Part 1/4)
Title: Tomorrow Takes Me Higher
Author: cjmarlowe
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Rating: R
Word Count: ~22,000
Song: "Under Pressure" duet with Queen
Warning(s): references to drug abuse
Summary: Six years after their time on Idol, old friends are brought together again to rally around one of their own. The pressures of fame are many, and people crack in different ways.
DAY ONE
Adam got the call while he was on a transatlantic flight, London to New York, but since his phone was off and he was taking advantage of the downtime to catch up on his sleep he didn't hear what happened until he was well inside JFK, sunglasses firmly in place and rolling his luggage behind him.
He only listened to the first three messages before hanging up on his voicemail, which was more than enough to get a handle on the situation, and could only imagine how many calls his assistant had been fielding for the past six hours if his own voicemail was that full. There was only one call he wanted to make right now though, stopping at the first available empty seat and ignoring everyone around him. Thankfully Kris picked up on the second ring.
"Tell me everything," he said, without making time for niceties. "What the hell happened?"
"I don't know much more than you do," said Kris without missing a beat. "They found him in his hotel room early this morning. Have you seen the news? It's a media circus."
"I haven't had a chance yet," said Adam, ignoring the people were looking at him, who were photographing him. "But I can imagine."
"Only immediate family is getting information right now, so everything I'm hearing is second and third hand. He's stable, that's all I know for sure right now."
"Are you going?" said Adam. "No, of course you're going. Are you already there?"
"In transit," said Kris. "I got into Chicago about half an hour ago. I'm in the back of a cab right now. Are you in New York? When's your connecting flight to LA? I'll keep you updated when I can."
"It's--" Adam began, then stopped almost immediately. Because until now he hadn't given a second thought to catching his connecting flight, and Kris really had been expecting him to do just that. Matt was in a Chicago hospital after ODing in his hotel room and Adam was just going to carry on with his life. "I'll be on the first flight to Chicago I can. I'll tell Julia I won't be meeting her in LA after all and get her on it as soon as I get off the phone with you."
"You don't have to...I can call you as soon as I find out anything. You're busy."
"No," said Adam, shaking his head though the only people who could see were the ones taking video of him on their phones. "I can be there in a few hours. I'm not doing anything that can't be cancelled. I'm not too busy for this."
He started mentally running through everything he needed to take care of but gave up quickly, deciding to leave it in Julia's capable hands. As of two days ago his tour was over, and he was back home - or at least on the right side of the ocean - and whatever he had going on really could be rescheduled. One of his friends had overdosed in a hotel room, alone, and it could've been him.
"Okay," said Kris, and Adam figured he'd really only been making a token argument to begin with, giving Adam an out that he neither needed nor wanted. "Do you want me to call from the hospital?"
"Yes," said Adam, but only because keeping him on the phone the entire time wasn't an option. "If you can't reach me, just keep trying. I'll let you know when my flight leaves. There's got to be one soon."
"Traffic's bad," said Kris. "I won't be there for a while."
"And if they let you see him," Adam added, "give my best to Matt. And then punch him for being an idiot."
"I'll have to punch him twice," said Kris, sounding a little bit choked up for the first time. "Once for you and once for myself."
"Good," said Adam. "Okay, I’m calling Julia. She's probably freaking out that I haven't already. Take care of yourself, Kris."
"And him," said Kris. "I'll see you soon, Adam."
This didn't come out of the blue, that was the thing. Kris had been keeping him updated on Matt whenever they talked, on the conversations he'd been having with him, on the time he'd been spending with him. And Adam had dutifully listened and made sympathetic noises and done nothing more. It was only now, in hindsight, that he really understood what he'd been hearing, and understood just how much he'd left on Kris's shoulders.
Adam was going to Chicago for Matt's sake first, but he was going for his own and Kris's too, and he might as well own that right from the start.
*
Anoop was actually the first person Adam saw after being smuggled inside through a side door and bypassing as much paparazzi as he could. He couldn't avoid all of them though, and pictures of him arriving were probably up on the news blogs before he even reached the waiting room.
"Adam," he said, slowly pushing himself up out of his seat to greet him. "You came."
"Of course I came," he said. "How is he?"
"Alive," he said, and after a few moments of awkward hesitation he let Adam wrap his arms around him for a moment. "Stupid asshole. He never heard of a phone? We would've come."
It wasn't that easy, but Adam didn't need to say it. Anoop knew that. They all knew.
"Who else is here?" he said instead, grasping Anoop's forearms and keeping him there for a few more moments. He looked a little shaky, but Adam guessed the whole situation would make anyone shaky. He knew he was a little wrecked himself, even if he was practiced enough to keep it on the inside.
"Kris," he said, nodding towards a partially-open door. "He's in the private room. I was just getting claustrophobic in there, nothing to do but sit and wait. Matt's mom hasn't left his side since she got here, except to come out for coffee and updates. She's mostly passing them on to Robin, and Robin's passing them on to us."
"Yeah, I've talked to Kris," said Adam, and resisted the urge to head straight in there as soon as Anoop told him where he was. "He's the one who told me."
"At least you didn't have CNN break it to you," said Anoop. "Let me tell you just how much fun that wasn't."
"If I hadn't been on an airplane I might've," he said. If he hadn't been sleeping and had instead been watching the news he still might've. Not that it would've done him much good, but at least he could've gotten in touch with people sooner. "He'll be glad you're here. You always stuck by him."
"But not enough," said Anoop. "I didn't stick by him enough."
"No, you did," said Adam. "You're not his keeper, you're his friend." Anoop might not've looked convinced, but he stoically nodded his head.
If he was being honest, Anoop had seen a lot more of Matt than Adam had these past few years. Just because both of their careers grew stratospheric, Adam's following an expected trajectory and Matt's coming out of nowhere to make an unexpectedly rapid rise, that didn't mean they saw a lot of each other. Pretty much the opposite, actually; when one had the time, the other almost inevitably didn't.
Their parallel careers didn't mean that Adam was his best friend, they just meant that Adam got him, maybe more than any of the rest of them. It wasn't about Idol anymore, the competition six years and three albums in Adam's past. It was about learning how to cope with what came after.
"God, I need to call my assistant, she hates me so much right now," said Adam after a few moments of silence, but he was looking towards the doorway again and not at his phone.
"He's been waiting for you," said Anoop, nodding Adam in the direction he'd already been looking. "He's taking it pretty hard."
"Idiot's probably blaming himself," said Adam, but was glad of the excuse to do exactly what he wanted to do. He barely even had to look down to dash off a quick text to Julia instead of calling. "You coming?"
"Nah, I think I'll get some sandwiches," said Anoop. "You need to eat something too. I'll get you one."
"I don't need--"
"Yeah right," Anoop interrupted him. "Just...I'm getting everyone sandwiches. Go tell Kris you're here or he'll never forgive either of us."
Adam nodded and he didn't waste any more time before pushing through the door into the inner waiting room. It had been way too long since he'd seen him, and it was a shame they had to do it this way instead of two days from now back in LA, at a dinner they already had planned.
"Adam," said Kris, up out of his seat before Adam was even through the door, straight into Adam's arms and holding him close. For a long time they didn't need to say anything at all.
When they finally parted, when Kris finally backed away and sank back into his chair like he couldn't even find the energy to stand up anymore, Adam took the hard plastic seat next to him, ignoring the couches across the room, and said, "It's not your fault."
"I know that," said Kris. "I do know that."
"That doesn't mean you don't need somebody to say it," said Adam. "If there was anything you could do, you already did it."
"I knew he was having a rough time."
"Everyone knew he was having a rough time," said Adam. "You were having a rough time too."
"Not really," said Kris. "Not so much. And I wasn't so busy I couldn’t have come up and just stayed with him instead of trying to do this over phone and email--"
"No, stop," said Adam. "Kris, you can't save everyone, and he has to accept your help before you can give it."
"I know," said Kris, but much like with Matt, it was going to take more than words to convince him of that. "Maybe now he will."
"Maybe now he will," agreed Adam, and put his arm around Kris's shoulders and was glad for this small amount of privacy they were allowed in the middle of this madness. "I guess now we just wait, huh?"
"It's all I've been doing since I got here," said Kris. "Waiting and messaging people and waiting some more. And talking to Matt's ex-wife."
"Oh God," said Adam. "How the hell did that fall on your shoulders?"
"Too nice, I guess," said Kris. While Adam could understand completely why he didn't want to burden Matt's mother with that, it was a job that could easily have been passed on to his assistant, and the fact that Kris hadn't made it seem like the call was some kind of punishment Kris was bent on inflicting on himself. "She's not coming."
"Are you surprised?" said Adam. "Lindsay's handlers probably wouldn't have let her even if she wanted to. They're all over the clean and sober image right now; wouldn't want her associating with something like this unless they had complete control of the media."
"Which they never have," said Kris. "At least now it's done with and nobody else has to worry about it. But you...you must be so jetlagged right now."
"I guess," said Adam, running a hand through his hair and thinking about how wretched it had probably looked when he was rushing through O'Hare (and you'd better believe there were paparazzi there too). "I'm still running on adrenaline right now. I'll probably crash pretty hard later."
"You got a place to stay?"
"Julia set something up," said Adam. "Details are on my phone. I haven't even really looked."
Kris just dug the phone right out of Adam's pocket and looked it up himself. "Okay, good," he said. "She talked to Cameron a few hours ago. You're in the same hotel as me. Same floor."
"What, no penthouse suite?" said Adam, cracking a tired little smile as he rolled his head back and closed his eyes for a moment.
"You'll live, rock star," said Kris. "We can ride over together later."
"I'm not going anywhere till I see him," said Adam, though he probably didn't have a lot of say in the matter. His influence got him a lot of places, but here in the emergency room it didn't mean anything at all.
"That's what I mean," said Kris, and after handing Adam's phone back he rested his head on Adam's shoulder as they waited. Adam didn't relax, but he came the closest to it that he had in what felt like a very long time.
*
"Look, you should just release a statement," Adam was hearing in one ear while he watched Kris pace the room, so worn down he was practically shuffling. "It'll take a lot of pressure off, for now at least."
He really should've done something like that already. He really should've done it back in the airport in New York while he was waiting for his flight, and it wasn't like Adam not to be on the ball about something like this. But this whole thing had really hit him hard, and he wasn't sorry that it had. Better it hit him hard than not sink in at all.
"Write something up," he said, half watching Kris's progress and half watching the door for any news. "Short and sweet. Matt's a good friend and my thoughts are with him in this difficult time while we hope for a speedy recovery. Or something like that. You know how to do this."
"Okay, good, I'll send it to you to sign off on," she said, but as soon as a doctor finally joined the five of them currently in the waiting room he was hardly paying attention anymore. This was the kind of thing he just had to trust other people to do for him.
"I've gotta go," said Adam, and disconnected the call before anyone could say anything else. His assistant really was going to hate him before the day was over.
When Kris reached for his hand, Adam didn't hesitate to give it to him as they braced themselves for the worst and hoped for the best.
What they got was five minutes with Matt each, one at a time, and the assurance that he was going to wake up eventually. It wasn't much, but it was at least enough to ease Adam's fears that Matt was in worse shape than anyone had been letting on. He was sleeping now, just sleeping, and it was clear from the easy rise and fall of his chest that he was out of the woods. This time, anyway.
"All right," said Adam when he left the room, the last person to spend time with Matt before his mother took over her bedside vigil again. "We can go now."
Kris was the only one left, and he nodded his head and grabbed his bag and seemed as happy as Adam to finally feel okay enough to leave.
*
Adam had a huge suite and normally he would've spread himself all over it as soon as he got inside, clothes and accessories and product, and thrown the curtains open and maybe aired out the bed a little before making himself a drink. But today he just dumped his luggage on the floor, changed into pajama pants worn through at the knee and an old, grey t-shirt, and slipped up the hall to Kris's room, witnessed by no one.
Kris held up a finger as he entered and Adam lingered by the door, not quite coming into the room but not quite leaving it either. "Hey, Max," he was saying. "How's it going, buddy?"
Adam nodded his head and motioned towards the bathroom, like Kris needed to know that he would be hiding out in there for the duration of his phone call. But when Kris was talking to his kids Adam liked to give him a at least a little bit of privacy, whether he asked for it or not.
Kris's bathroom was as spare as it had always been. Toothpaste, hair gel, contact lens solution, and a whole lot of empty space. He could still hear the sound of Kris's voice through the bathroom door but he couldn't hear the conversation, just the gentle rumble of speech. Sadie was probably sleeping already, not big enough yet to stay up much past dinnertime, but Max could talk your ear off if you let him. That one definitely took after his mother.
Adam was reading the back of the shampoo bottle for the third time when he heard a knock at the door.
"You didn't have to leave," Kris said, finding the door unlocked and poking his head inside. "It wasn't private."
"Just wanted to give you some time," said Adam, putting the bottle down. "How's the family?"
"Max wanted to tell me about the new friend he met at preschool," said Kris, "and I already talked to Katy before you got here. You know, worked out who gets the kids when during the holidays. Everyone says I should get it in writing but she's still Katy. It'll be fine."
Adam wanted to tell him to get it in writing anyway, not because of Katy but because of the people who were undoubtedly surrounding her. If there was one thing Adam had learned, it was just to make sure terms were laid out clearly no matter how much you trusted the person you were working with.
But this wasn't a business relationship, this was a dissolved marriage, and no matter what the similarities Adam's input was not needed here.
"So did you get Christmas?"
"Next year," said Kris, shaking his head. He looked fine with it, though. Maybe a little disappointed, but not upset. "We're both going to be in Arkansas with our families this year so I can have them Christmas Eve without it being too much shuffling around for them. She wants to go away with them over Easter next year, so I can have them for a week at Christmas. It's a fair compromise."
"Good," said Adam, even though that probably wasn't the best way to put it. Still, in the midst of everything else it was one less thing for him to have to worry about. "Is she going to come up here with them?"
Kris was shaking his head before Adam could even finish. "No, not right now," he said. "They don't need to see this, and I don't know how to explain it to them. I'll spend some extra time with them when I get back home, and call them every night. They're looking forward to seeing you too, you know."
"Sadie doesn't even know me."
"She knows your voice," said Kris, "and Max talks about you all the time. Apparently you give better presents than we do."
Adam didn't have to ask if Kris missed them. He just wrapped his arms around him until Kris pressed his forehead to Adam's shoulder and finally relaxed.
"I'll make tea," said Adam, rubbing his back with one hand, "and then we can talk about--"
"What we're doing here. Matt. Everything," finished Kris, lifting his head. "It's really good to see you again, Adam. This is easier with you."
Adam was pretty sure he wasn't just talking about this, about Matt and about everything he was going though, and the ways in which Kris had been going through it with him. He'd separated from Katy long before Adam had left on his world tour, but divorcing was a process, and even when it was over it wasn't really over.
"We don't have to do this now," he said, but doing this now gave them both an excuse to spend this time together. Otherwise Adam might as well have been in his own room, in his own bed right now.
"I've been trying, with Matt," said Kris. "I knew things weren't great. I knew he needed more help than I could give him."
"And what, you were going to force it on him?" said Adam. "Kris, I can't let you carry this on your shoulders. You weren't telling Matt anything he didn't already know. It was on him to let it sink in."
"I just keep running through it in my head," said Kris, "wondering if there was something I missed, you know? Something more I could've done so it never came to this."
"There wasn't," said Adam, feeling sure of that at least. "Any more than I could've done something, and I actually have experience with some of these things. Second guessing yourself will just drive you crazy. You did everything you could. Hell, I'm the one who should be feeling guilty here, if anyone should be."
"What, why?" said Kris, but Adam shook his head.
"Just be there for him now, because now's when he's really going to need you. Us."
"Is that why you came?"
"Maybe," said Adam. "Partly. I came because...I just had to come. You ever get that feeling, like you just have to do something?"
"All the time," said Kris, lying back on the bed and putting one arm behind his head. "I just probably call it something different from what you do."
"Yeah, maybe," said Adam, stretching out next to him. "So now that we're here, tell me what's going on with you. I loved that song you sent me last week."
"Yeah, been working on that with the band," said Kris, and smiled a little and seemed relieved to be able to talk about something good going on in his life.
Adam didn't mean to fall asleep on Kris's bed, but they were still talking when he finally crashed. And when he woke up again who knew how many hours later, he was under the covers on one side of the bed and Kris was asleep on the other, and it all felt so comfortably much like old times that he had no trouble falling asleep again for the rest of the night.
DAY TWO
When they returned to the hospital in the morning, shoulder to shoulder as they made their way through the front doors this time, all but the most persistent paparazzi cleared from the area as a dangerous nuisance, they were told that Matt was awake. A little out of it, but awake.
"Doesn't mean we'll be able to talk to him," Adam murmured in Kris's ear, but Kris looked hopeful anyway and for his sake Adam hoped that he would be able to. Adam wasn't sure, now that the opportunity was in front of him, whether it would be a good idea for him to see Matt just yet or not.
They sat down in the same waiting room, with the same nurses at the same nursing station, the same chairs and the same feelings of frustration and helplessness. It wasn't any better now that Matt was awake, because the same unsolved issues still hung over everyone's heads.
Matt OD'd on cocaine, alone in a hotel room, and having him regain consciousness didn't make that okay.
"Do you think they're going to force him into rehab?" said Kris, but Adam shook his head.
"No," he said, "but he'll go anyway, because his publicist will tell him that it's the only way to make this right in the public eye. Minimum program they offer, and who knows if it'll do him any good, but at least it's something."
"That's not very reassuring."
"You'd rather I lie to you?" said Adam, and Kris shook his head and then rested it against Adam's shoulder as they sat there, ignoring their phones and everyone around them.
It was three hours before someone told them they could have a few minutes with him, which was two hours after Anoop had a brief and apparently emotionally draining visit, and following his mother's marathon forty-five minute conversation.
"You should go," he told Kris, but Kris grabbed his arm and they were both going in or neither one would.
Matt looked like a disaster, small and pale and tired against the hospital sheets.
"Okay, I'm trying really hard not to be mad at you right now," said Kris, the first words out of his mouth. "Really, really hard."
Matt just nodded, looking thin and tired and resigned.
"I'm going to yell at you too," said Adam, "I'm just waiting till we're not in the hospital to do it. Idiot."
He nodded again, without saying anything. But he'd talked to Anoop earlier so Adam knew that he could talk, if he wanted to.
Kris looked like he was going to say something else, then just bent down towards the bed and pressed his forehead to Matt's shoulder. "You really scared us," he said, his voice muffled by the hospital gown. "I don't know what you were thinking."
Adam did know what he was thinking, he got that much, and it scared him a little how it got so far when Matt had places to turn and people to turn to. Matt had people, and he hadn't gone to any of them. Or maybe Matt just had all the wrong people now, and had forgotten about the right ones. Adam knew a little something about the temptation of going in that direction.
"Just take a vacation or something," said Adam. "Come hide in my guest room and soak in my hot tub and swim in my pool. Or something. Open invitation."
Matt turned his head to look away, but Adam could see that he was still listening. Not just listening, but paying attention.
"Me too," said Kris. "I don't know what I'd do if this happened again. It could've been so much worse."
"I know," said Matt, without looking at either of them.
Everyone knew he could've died. Who knew how close he'd actually come, maybe only the doctors knew that, but it was a very real possibility. And at least Matt knew that, on more than just an intellectual level.
"If I've been a dick," Adam said after a moment, "I'm sorry. I'm here now."
Kris was the one who looked up at that. "Adam, you haven't--" he started, but stopped when Adam waved him off.
"I just wanted to say it," he said, to Matt, not to Kris. "You don't have to say anything."
Actually, there were probably a lot of things Matt needed to say to them, but not right now, not right this second. He'd open his mouth when he was ready to open his mouth, and not a moment sooner.
And he didn't, not for the rest of the time they were in there, even though Kris kept talking to him quietly. At least he made eye contact with Kris, nodding every once in a while. Adam just sat quietly, rested his hand on Matt's leg and felt like it was enough, for now, that Matt let him.
*
Adam was getting damn tired of his phone ringing. He'd already talked to his family, his friends, his assistant, and had his PR team all over his ass telling him he couldn't hang out in a hospital for a week. To which Adam told them the hell he couldn't, and if they needed anything from him that urgently they knew where to reach Julia. It might not have been much of a break, spending his time here, but it was what Adam had chosen and frankly, since he had just come off tour and had nothing scheduled, it was none of their damn business.
But this call wasn't from any of the people he'd already spoken to, and Adam picked up quickly before she gave up on him.
"Allie!" said Adam before he even heard her voice on the other end of the line. "Hey, how are you?"
"Cut the shit," she said. "Tell me about Matt."
Kris was looking up at Adam over the newspaper he'd been reading - or at least pretending to read - and Adam gave him a smile and a nod and an implicit promise to hand over the phone when he was done.
"He's fine."
"Bullshit."
"Well, obviously he's not fine, but he he's awake and talking and breathing, and sometimes you've got to take what you can get," said Adam.
"Fuck it, I'm booking the next flight," said Allison. "I can be there in, like, twelve hours."
"You don't need to do that," said Adam. "We've got this, Allie. You're in Sweden, for God's sake. You don't need to fly over here just to talk to Matt for ten minutes."
"Then tell me how he's really doing," she said, "and don't spare me the tough details."
"He's okay," said Adam. "No brain damage or anything, unless you already think he has some for getting himself into this in the first place." Allison snorted her agreement. "He's feeling like shit, though, and not just because he's got nothing in his system right now. The entire fucking planet ran with this story, so he can't pretend it didn't happen."
"Well, good," said Allison. "Are you sure I shouldn't come there and sit on him or something? Because you'd better believe I can reschedule some of this shit and show up if I have to."
"Really, we've got this," said Adam. "So hey, Kris wants to talk to you."
"Kris is there? With you? Right now?"
"Yeah, he's right here," said Adam. "Where else did you think he'd be?"
"Nowhere, I guess," she said. "Pass me over and let me give him some instructions too, then. If I can't be there, you guys can at least do my job for me."
"Believe me, we are," said Adam. "There was even yelling, and not just from me. Well, as much as you can yell in a hospital."
"If it was me it would've been actual yelling," insisted Allison. "All right, gimme Kris. He's probably making those eyes at you right now."
Kris was, in fact, making some kind of eyes at Adam, though he wasn't quite sure if they were the kind of eyes that Allison was talking about. Either way, he held out the phone in Kris's direction and Kris wasted no time practically jumping out of his seat to grab it out of Adam's hand.
"Hey, Allie?" he said, then there was a long pause as Kris likely got the same speech Adam had. "Yeah, don't worry, we told him. So how's the recording going?"
There was another long pause as Allison launched into it again, and Adam wandered away to study a painting, nothing interesting at all, or particularly soothing either, but it gave him something to focus on so he didn't eavesdrop on the conversation. Not that either of them probably would've really cared if he had.
He was just trying to figure out whether the figures in the little sailboat were male or female when he felt a hand on his back, then on his shoulder, and didn't even start because he knew that touch was Kris's without even having to think about it.
"Apparently we have some more yelling to do," he said, and Adam laughed as he took back the phone. "I don't even know what to say to him anymore. I just don't. I mean, does he understand he could've had a heart attack? Does he understand he could've died?"
"Yeah," said Adam. "Yeah, he understands that. It just doesn't matter as much as it should."
"Maybe I should kidnap him to Arkansas," said Kris. "I'm not too busy lately. I could babysit him in some cabin in the mountains."
"Then I'd have to come too," said Adam, "and as fond as I am of you, Kristopher, there are some things I’m just not willing to do."
"I knew it was bad," said Kris, "and I didn't do anything."
"You didn't know it was this bad."
"No, I did," said Kris. "I knew it was this bad. He called me a couple weeks ago, all jittery and confused. I talked him through it, told him to get medical help but he wouldn't so I just kept him on the phone with me. I knew it was this bad and I didn't make him get help."
Adam was quiet for a moment, and he'd known that Kris was trying to be there for Matt when he could, one of the closest friends Matt still had who weren't all mixed up in his scene, but he hadn't realized that Kris knew as much as he did. Not that it changed anything.
"You gave him good advice," he said. "You told him to get medical help. And knowing you, you even looked it up for him in whatever city he was in so he wouldn't have to do anything."
Kris's silence was a clear yes. "He was in Philadelphia," he said finally. "I could've--"
"You could've what?" said Adam, turning around and kissing Kris on the forehead. "You did more than anyone else."
"I didn't know about the other stuff he was doing," he added a moment later. "I probably should have."
"Yeah, well, what's that about hindsight?" said Adam. "Keep beating yourself up like this and we're going to find bruises under those clothes, Kris. Seriously. Stop now. Right here and right now, just stop now. The only person who was ever going to stop Matt is Matt."
"But--"
"Stop now," said Adam again, holding both of Kris's upper arms, firmly but carefully, too. "This isn't on your shoulders. We've all made some mistakes in our lives, and maybe a lot of things here could've been done differently, but this isn't on you."
"I guess I got a little more wrapped up in it than I thought," he admitted grudgingly a moment later. "I think Matt ran out of people to call."
"That's on Matt too," said Adam. "Come on, let's go down to the cafeteria. This place is driving both of us a little too nuts. If anything happens, we'll still hear about it."
"I should probably call home," said Kris. "Max'll be getting home from preschool any minute now. If he was good today, maybe he can talk to Uncle Adam."
"He can talk to Uncle Adam when he's bad, too," said Adam, and that was all the encouragement he needed to haul Kris out of the stifling waiting room and lead him downstairs.
*
Room service actually made a mean steak au poivre, which was something Adam had learned not to take for granted. "Good, you do still eat," he said as Kris dug into his burger. "I was starting to think I was going to have to go out and find some fast food for you."
"I don't eat that much take-out," said Kris. "Well, not anymore, anyway. It's a lot less tasty when you have someone on repeat in your head reminding you that one day your metabolism won't be able to keep up anymore."
"Yeah, enjoy that hamburger, then," said Adam, smirking at him but certainly not trying to discourage his appetite. Or his own. If there was ever a time to do whatever the hell he wanted, this was it, and the tour'd taken fifteen pounds off him anyway. "We should've gotten you dessert."
"Or we can save that for later," said Kris, licking his fingers clean. I mean...actually, I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. I'm so hungry, though. I feel like I haven't eaten in days."
"I'm not sure you have," said Adam, "other than cafeteria coffee, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't count."
"I don't know, it might count when you actually have to chew it," said Kris. "My mother would probably argue with that. I probably shouldn't suggest it."
"You look like you're feeling better," said Adam as he finished off as much of his dinner as he was planning to eat, which was actually most of it.
"I'm all right," said Kris. "A little relieved, I guess. I've got this new song I want to work on tonight, so I guess that's got my head in a better place."
"Yeah?" said Adam. "Anything you'd be willing to play for me?"
"Well, I have a feeling you're going to be hanging around in here, so I might not have a choice," said Kris, his smile suggesting he didn't mind that. "You've heard me tooling around on my guitar often enough."
"I do have some calls to make, if you want to kick me out for a while," said Adam. "Actually, I've got some calls to make whether you kick me out or not. I've put them off long enough."
"Yeah, I hear that," said Kris. "I've just decided mine can wait till tomorrow. I'm not in a really urgent place right now, you know? I've got my own stuff to deal with today."
"Yeah," agreed Adam, and even though he knew he actually did need to return a couple of calls today, there were a lot more he was still putting off. "It would probably be a bad idea to find a little hole in the wall karaoke bar and just sing some shit tonight, right?"
"Probably," said Kris, "but hey, do what you need to do and deal with the photographs tomorrow."
If only it was that easy anymore. Unless he found a real hole in the wall, Adam would be mobbed.
"I feel like an asshole, saying I wish he'd never gotten famous," he said after a moment, "but if he'd never gotten famous, we wouldn't be here right now. It wouldn't be like this."
"You don't know that," said Kris. "It might've been just like this. It might've been worse."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"We just don't know," said Kris, holding his ground. "Sure, it would've happened differently, but it might've still happened. The only thing we know for sure is that there'd be fewer paparazzi outside, and who knows, they might've still showed up for you."
"They wouldn't have known I was coming," said Adam, not disingenuous enough to deny that he was the big draw. "Apparently no one expected me to come."
"People thought you had better things to do," said Kris. "You have a lot going on."
"I don't, though," said Adam. "Not that's so important that I couldn't be here. Or nothing that should be considered that important, anyway. Is that what people expect of me?"
"It's not a character assessment, Adam," said Kris. "He's not dying, and you've been super busy this year. Sometimes even I don't know how you find enough hours in a day, and I've been there."
"What if it was me?" said Adam. "What if it was me in the hospital?"
"You're not trying to tell me something, are you?" said Kris, looking at him warily. "Because I know you still do stuff sometimes, but--"
"No, no, I'm not," Adam interrupted him. "I don't know what I’m trying to say. Matt, your divorce, my brother's new job...have I lost touch this year? Have I not been here when I was needed?"
"Things are always going to happen in life," said Kris. "You don't put yours on hold to take care of everyone else all the time. I can't speak for anyone else, but you were there when I needed you. The hard part wasn't the divorce, it was the stuff leading up to it."
Adam snorted and gave Kris a weak smile. "So you're telling me I can take my own advice, right?"
"Unless you didn't mean it," said Kris, "but I was just starting to let it sink in, so I hope you did." He polished off the last of his burger and licked off his fingers. "Sometimes I wish we were all just in a some little band that toured the country in an old van and just had a great time. I think I would be okay with that."
"No stress," said Adam, "except trying to make enough to live on." He loved his life, and loved his huge, decadent shows, but he got what Kris was saying. Sometimes he wished for that too. "I'd be lead singer."
"Of course you would," said Kris. "After all, you can't do anything else."
"Oh, snap," said Adam. "I'm getting decent on piano, you know. But keyboard would be Matt's job. You'd be on guitar, of course. We'd need a bass player. Maybe I can just bring mine."
"We'd hang out and play little clubs and sell CDs out of the van and life would be good," said Kris, then sighed. "In another life, right?"
"In another life," agreed Adam, "which we don't have, so I guess we'll just have to fix this one."
--
Part 2
Author: cjmarlowe
Pairing: Adam/Kris
Rating: R
Word Count: ~22,000
Song: "Under Pressure" duet with Queen
Warning(s): references to drug abuse
Summary: Six years after their time on Idol, old friends are brought together again to rally around one of their own. The pressures of fame are many, and people crack in different ways.
DAY ONE
Adam got the call while he was on a transatlantic flight, London to New York, but since his phone was off and he was taking advantage of the downtime to catch up on his sleep he didn't hear what happened until he was well inside JFK, sunglasses firmly in place and rolling his luggage behind him.
He only listened to the first three messages before hanging up on his voicemail, which was more than enough to get a handle on the situation, and could only imagine how many calls his assistant had been fielding for the past six hours if his own voicemail was that full. There was only one call he wanted to make right now though, stopping at the first available empty seat and ignoring everyone around him. Thankfully Kris picked up on the second ring.
"Tell me everything," he said, without making time for niceties. "What the hell happened?"
"I don't know much more than you do," said Kris without missing a beat. "They found him in his hotel room early this morning. Have you seen the news? It's a media circus."
"I haven't had a chance yet," said Adam, ignoring the people were looking at him, who were photographing him. "But I can imagine."
"Only immediate family is getting information right now, so everything I'm hearing is second and third hand. He's stable, that's all I know for sure right now."
"Are you going?" said Adam. "No, of course you're going. Are you already there?"
"In transit," said Kris. "I got into Chicago about half an hour ago. I'm in the back of a cab right now. Are you in New York? When's your connecting flight to LA? I'll keep you updated when I can."
"It's--" Adam began, then stopped almost immediately. Because until now he hadn't given a second thought to catching his connecting flight, and Kris really had been expecting him to do just that. Matt was in a Chicago hospital after ODing in his hotel room and Adam was just going to carry on with his life. "I'll be on the first flight to Chicago I can. I'll tell Julia I won't be meeting her in LA after all and get her on it as soon as I get off the phone with you."
"You don't have to...I can call you as soon as I find out anything. You're busy."
"No," said Adam, shaking his head though the only people who could see were the ones taking video of him on their phones. "I can be there in a few hours. I'm not doing anything that can't be cancelled. I'm not too busy for this."
He started mentally running through everything he needed to take care of but gave up quickly, deciding to leave it in Julia's capable hands. As of two days ago his tour was over, and he was back home - or at least on the right side of the ocean - and whatever he had going on really could be rescheduled. One of his friends had overdosed in a hotel room, alone, and it could've been him.
"Okay," said Kris, and Adam figured he'd really only been making a token argument to begin with, giving Adam an out that he neither needed nor wanted. "Do you want me to call from the hospital?"
"Yes," said Adam, but only because keeping him on the phone the entire time wasn't an option. "If you can't reach me, just keep trying. I'll let you know when my flight leaves. There's got to be one soon."
"Traffic's bad," said Kris. "I won't be there for a while."
"And if they let you see him," Adam added, "give my best to Matt. And then punch him for being an idiot."
"I'll have to punch him twice," said Kris, sounding a little bit choked up for the first time. "Once for you and once for myself."
"Good," said Adam. "Okay, I’m calling Julia. She's probably freaking out that I haven't already. Take care of yourself, Kris."
"And him," said Kris. "I'll see you soon, Adam."
This didn't come out of the blue, that was the thing. Kris had been keeping him updated on Matt whenever they talked, on the conversations he'd been having with him, on the time he'd been spending with him. And Adam had dutifully listened and made sympathetic noises and done nothing more. It was only now, in hindsight, that he really understood what he'd been hearing, and understood just how much he'd left on Kris's shoulders.
Adam was going to Chicago for Matt's sake first, but he was going for his own and Kris's too, and he might as well own that right from the start.
*
Anoop was actually the first person Adam saw after being smuggled inside through a side door and bypassing as much paparazzi as he could. He couldn't avoid all of them though, and pictures of him arriving were probably up on the news blogs before he even reached the waiting room.
"Adam," he said, slowly pushing himself up out of his seat to greet him. "You came."
"Of course I came," he said. "How is he?"
"Alive," he said, and after a few moments of awkward hesitation he let Adam wrap his arms around him for a moment. "Stupid asshole. He never heard of a phone? We would've come."
It wasn't that easy, but Adam didn't need to say it. Anoop knew that. They all knew.
"Who else is here?" he said instead, grasping Anoop's forearms and keeping him there for a few more moments. He looked a little shaky, but Adam guessed the whole situation would make anyone shaky. He knew he was a little wrecked himself, even if he was practiced enough to keep it on the inside.
"Kris," he said, nodding towards a partially-open door. "He's in the private room. I was just getting claustrophobic in there, nothing to do but sit and wait. Matt's mom hasn't left his side since she got here, except to come out for coffee and updates. She's mostly passing them on to Robin, and Robin's passing them on to us."
"Yeah, I've talked to Kris," said Adam, and resisted the urge to head straight in there as soon as Anoop told him where he was. "He's the one who told me."
"At least you didn't have CNN break it to you," said Anoop. "Let me tell you just how much fun that wasn't."
"If I hadn't been on an airplane I might've," he said. If he hadn't been sleeping and had instead been watching the news he still might've. Not that it would've done him much good, but at least he could've gotten in touch with people sooner. "He'll be glad you're here. You always stuck by him."
"But not enough," said Anoop. "I didn't stick by him enough."
"No, you did," said Adam. "You're not his keeper, you're his friend." Anoop might not've looked convinced, but he stoically nodded his head.
If he was being honest, Anoop had seen a lot more of Matt than Adam had these past few years. Just because both of their careers grew stratospheric, Adam's following an expected trajectory and Matt's coming out of nowhere to make an unexpectedly rapid rise, that didn't mean they saw a lot of each other. Pretty much the opposite, actually; when one had the time, the other almost inevitably didn't.
Their parallel careers didn't mean that Adam was his best friend, they just meant that Adam got him, maybe more than any of the rest of them. It wasn't about Idol anymore, the competition six years and three albums in Adam's past. It was about learning how to cope with what came after.
"God, I need to call my assistant, she hates me so much right now," said Adam after a few moments of silence, but he was looking towards the doorway again and not at his phone.
"He's been waiting for you," said Anoop, nodding Adam in the direction he'd already been looking. "He's taking it pretty hard."
"Idiot's probably blaming himself," said Adam, but was glad of the excuse to do exactly what he wanted to do. He barely even had to look down to dash off a quick text to Julia instead of calling. "You coming?"
"Nah, I think I'll get some sandwiches," said Anoop. "You need to eat something too. I'll get you one."
"I don't need--"
"Yeah right," Anoop interrupted him. "Just...I'm getting everyone sandwiches. Go tell Kris you're here or he'll never forgive either of us."
Adam nodded and he didn't waste any more time before pushing through the door into the inner waiting room. It had been way too long since he'd seen him, and it was a shame they had to do it this way instead of two days from now back in LA, at a dinner they already had planned.
"Adam," said Kris, up out of his seat before Adam was even through the door, straight into Adam's arms and holding him close. For a long time they didn't need to say anything at all.
When they finally parted, when Kris finally backed away and sank back into his chair like he couldn't even find the energy to stand up anymore, Adam took the hard plastic seat next to him, ignoring the couches across the room, and said, "It's not your fault."
"I know that," said Kris. "I do know that."
"That doesn't mean you don't need somebody to say it," said Adam. "If there was anything you could do, you already did it."
"I knew he was having a rough time."
"Everyone knew he was having a rough time," said Adam. "You were having a rough time too."
"Not really," said Kris. "Not so much. And I wasn't so busy I couldn’t have come up and just stayed with him instead of trying to do this over phone and email--"
"No, stop," said Adam. "Kris, you can't save everyone, and he has to accept your help before you can give it."
"I know," said Kris, but much like with Matt, it was going to take more than words to convince him of that. "Maybe now he will."
"Maybe now he will," agreed Adam, and put his arm around Kris's shoulders and was glad for this small amount of privacy they were allowed in the middle of this madness. "I guess now we just wait, huh?"
"It's all I've been doing since I got here," said Kris. "Waiting and messaging people and waiting some more. And talking to Matt's ex-wife."
"Oh God," said Adam. "How the hell did that fall on your shoulders?"
"Too nice, I guess," said Kris. While Adam could understand completely why he didn't want to burden Matt's mother with that, it was a job that could easily have been passed on to his assistant, and the fact that Kris hadn't made it seem like the call was some kind of punishment Kris was bent on inflicting on himself. "She's not coming."
"Are you surprised?" said Adam. "Lindsay's handlers probably wouldn't have let her even if she wanted to. They're all over the clean and sober image right now; wouldn't want her associating with something like this unless they had complete control of the media."
"Which they never have," said Kris. "At least now it's done with and nobody else has to worry about it. But you...you must be so jetlagged right now."
"I guess," said Adam, running a hand through his hair and thinking about how wretched it had probably looked when he was rushing through O'Hare (and you'd better believe there were paparazzi there too). "I'm still running on adrenaline right now. I'll probably crash pretty hard later."
"You got a place to stay?"
"Julia set something up," said Adam. "Details are on my phone. I haven't even really looked."
Kris just dug the phone right out of Adam's pocket and looked it up himself. "Okay, good," he said. "She talked to Cameron a few hours ago. You're in the same hotel as me. Same floor."
"What, no penthouse suite?" said Adam, cracking a tired little smile as he rolled his head back and closed his eyes for a moment.
"You'll live, rock star," said Kris. "We can ride over together later."
"I'm not going anywhere till I see him," said Adam, though he probably didn't have a lot of say in the matter. His influence got him a lot of places, but here in the emergency room it didn't mean anything at all.
"That's what I mean," said Kris, and after handing Adam's phone back he rested his head on Adam's shoulder as they waited. Adam didn't relax, but he came the closest to it that he had in what felt like a very long time.
*
"Look, you should just release a statement," Adam was hearing in one ear while he watched Kris pace the room, so worn down he was practically shuffling. "It'll take a lot of pressure off, for now at least."
He really should've done something like that already. He really should've done it back in the airport in New York while he was waiting for his flight, and it wasn't like Adam not to be on the ball about something like this. But this whole thing had really hit him hard, and he wasn't sorry that it had. Better it hit him hard than not sink in at all.
"Write something up," he said, half watching Kris's progress and half watching the door for any news. "Short and sweet. Matt's a good friend and my thoughts are with him in this difficult time while we hope for a speedy recovery. Or something like that. You know how to do this."
"Okay, good, I'll send it to you to sign off on," she said, but as soon as a doctor finally joined the five of them currently in the waiting room he was hardly paying attention anymore. This was the kind of thing he just had to trust other people to do for him.
"I've gotta go," said Adam, and disconnected the call before anyone could say anything else. His assistant really was going to hate him before the day was over.
When Kris reached for his hand, Adam didn't hesitate to give it to him as they braced themselves for the worst and hoped for the best.
What they got was five minutes with Matt each, one at a time, and the assurance that he was going to wake up eventually. It wasn't much, but it was at least enough to ease Adam's fears that Matt was in worse shape than anyone had been letting on. He was sleeping now, just sleeping, and it was clear from the easy rise and fall of his chest that he was out of the woods. This time, anyway.
"All right," said Adam when he left the room, the last person to spend time with Matt before his mother took over her bedside vigil again. "We can go now."
Kris was the only one left, and he nodded his head and grabbed his bag and seemed as happy as Adam to finally feel okay enough to leave.
*
Adam had a huge suite and normally he would've spread himself all over it as soon as he got inside, clothes and accessories and product, and thrown the curtains open and maybe aired out the bed a little before making himself a drink. But today he just dumped his luggage on the floor, changed into pajama pants worn through at the knee and an old, grey t-shirt, and slipped up the hall to Kris's room, witnessed by no one.
Kris held up a finger as he entered and Adam lingered by the door, not quite coming into the room but not quite leaving it either. "Hey, Max," he was saying. "How's it going, buddy?"
Adam nodded his head and motioned towards the bathroom, like Kris needed to know that he would be hiding out in there for the duration of his phone call. But when Kris was talking to his kids Adam liked to give him a at least a little bit of privacy, whether he asked for it or not.
Kris's bathroom was as spare as it had always been. Toothpaste, hair gel, contact lens solution, and a whole lot of empty space. He could still hear the sound of Kris's voice through the bathroom door but he couldn't hear the conversation, just the gentle rumble of speech. Sadie was probably sleeping already, not big enough yet to stay up much past dinnertime, but Max could talk your ear off if you let him. That one definitely took after his mother.
Adam was reading the back of the shampoo bottle for the third time when he heard a knock at the door.
"You didn't have to leave," Kris said, finding the door unlocked and poking his head inside. "It wasn't private."
"Just wanted to give you some time," said Adam, putting the bottle down. "How's the family?"
"Max wanted to tell me about the new friend he met at preschool," said Kris, "and I already talked to Katy before you got here. You know, worked out who gets the kids when during the holidays. Everyone says I should get it in writing but she's still Katy. It'll be fine."
Adam wanted to tell him to get it in writing anyway, not because of Katy but because of the people who were undoubtedly surrounding her. If there was one thing Adam had learned, it was just to make sure terms were laid out clearly no matter how much you trusted the person you were working with.
But this wasn't a business relationship, this was a dissolved marriage, and no matter what the similarities Adam's input was not needed here.
"So did you get Christmas?"
"Next year," said Kris, shaking his head. He looked fine with it, though. Maybe a little disappointed, but not upset. "We're both going to be in Arkansas with our families this year so I can have them Christmas Eve without it being too much shuffling around for them. She wants to go away with them over Easter next year, so I can have them for a week at Christmas. It's a fair compromise."
"Good," said Adam, even though that probably wasn't the best way to put it. Still, in the midst of everything else it was one less thing for him to have to worry about. "Is she going to come up here with them?"
Kris was shaking his head before Adam could even finish. "No, not right now," he said. "They don't need to see this, and I don't know how to explain it to them. I'll spend some extra time with them when I get back home, and call them every night. They're looking forward to seeing you too, you know."
"Sadie doesn't even know me."
"She knows your voice," said Kris, "and Max talks about you all the time. Apparently you give better presents than we do."
Adam didn't have to ask if Kris missed them. He just wrapped his arms around him until Kris pressed his forehead to Adam's shoulder and finally relaxed.
"I'll make tea," said Adam, rubbing his back with one hand, "and then we can talk about--"
"What we're doing here. Matt. Everything," finished Kris, lifting his head. "It's really good to see you again, Adam. This is easier with you."
Adam was pretty sure he wasn't just talking about this, about Matt and about everything he was going though, and the ways in which Kris had been going through it with him. He'd separated from Katy long before Adam had left on his world tour, but divorcing was a process, and even when it was over it wasn't really over.
"We don't have to do this now," he said, but doing this now gave them both an excuse to spend this time together. Otherwise Adam might as well have been in his own room, in his own bed right now.
"I've been trying, with Matt," said Kris. "I knew things weren't great. I knew he needed more help than I could give him."
"And what, you were going to force it on him?" said Adam. "Kris, I can't let you carry this on your shoulders. You weren't telling Matt anything he didn't already know. It was on him to let it sink in."
"I just keep running through it in my head," said Kris, "wondering if there was something I missed, you know? Something more I could've done so it never came to this."
"There wasn't," said Adam, feeling sure of that at least. "Any more than I could've done something, and I actually have experience with some of these things. Second guessing yourself will just drive you crazy. You did everything you could. Hell, I'm the one who should be feeling guilty here, if anyone should be."
"What, why?" said Kris, but Adam shook his head.
"Just be there for him now, because now's when he's really going to need you. Us."
"Is that why you came?"
"Maybe," said Adam. "Partly. I came because...I just had to come. You ever get that feeling, like you just have to do something?"
"All the time," said Kris, lying back on the bed and putting one arm behind his head. "I just probably call it something different from what you do."
"Yeah, maybe," said Adam, stretching out next to him. "So now that we're here, tell me what's going on with you. I loved that song you sent me last week."
"Yeah, been working on that with the band," said Kris, and smiled a little and seemed relieved to be able to talk about something good going on in his life.
Adam didn't mean to fall asleep on Kris's bed, but they were still talking when he finally crashed. And when he woke up again who knew how many hours later, he was under the covers on one side of the bed and Kris was asleep on the other, and it all felt so comfortably much like old times that he had no trouble falling asleep again for the rest of the night.
DAY TWO
When they returned to the hospital in the morning, shoulder to shoulder as they made their way through the front doors this time, all but the most persistent paparazzi cleared from the area as a dangerous nuisance, they were told that Matt was awake. A little out of it, but awake.
"Doesn't mean we'll be able to talk to him," Adam murmured in Kris's ear, but Kris looked hopeful anyway and for his sake Adam hoped that he would be able to. Adam wasn't sure, now that the opportunity was in front of him, whether it would be a good idea for him to see Matt just yet or not.
They sat down in the same waiting room, with the same nurses at the same nursing station, the same chairs and the same feelings of frustration and helplessness. It wasn't any better now that Matt was awake, because the same unsolved issues still hung over everyone's heads.
Matt OD'd on cocaine, alone in a hotel room, and having him regain consciousness didn't make that okay.
"Do you think they're going to force him into rehab?" said Kris, but Adam shook his head.
"No," he said, "but he'll go anyway, because his publicist will tell him that it's the only way to make this right in the public eye. Minimum program they offer, and who knows if it'll do him any good, but at least it's something."
"That's not very reassuring."
"You'd rather I lie to you?" said Adam, and Kris shook his head and then rested it against Adam's shoulder as they sat there, ignoring their phones and everyone around them.
It was three hours before someone told them they could have a few minutes with him, which was two hours after Anoop had a brief and apparently emotionally draining visit, and following his mother's marathon forty-five minute conversation.
"You should go," he told Kris, but Kris grabbed his arm and they were both going in or neither one would.
Matt looked like a disaster, small and pale and tired against the hospital sheets.
"Okay, I'm trying really hard not to be mad at you right now," said Kris, the first words out of his mouth. "Really, really hard."
Matt just nodded, looking thin and tired and resigned.
"I'm going to yell at you too," said Adam, "I'm just waiting till we're not in the hospital to do it. Idiot."
He nodded again, without saying anything. But he'd talked to Anoop earlier so Adam knew that he could talk, if he wanted to.
Kris looked like he was going to say something else, then just bent down towards the bed and pressed his forehead to Matt's shoulder. "You really scared us," he said, his voice muffled by the hospital gown. "I don't know what you were thinking."
Adam did know what he was thinking, he got that much, and it scared him a little how it got so far when Matt had places to turn and people to turn to. Matt had people, and he hadn't gone to any of them. Or maybe Matt just had all the wrong people now, and had forgotten about the right ones. Adam knew a little something about the temptation of going in that direction.
"Just take a vacation or something," said Adam. "Come hide in my guest room and soak in my hot tub and swim in my pool. Or something. Open invitation."
Matt turned his head to look away, but Adam could see that he was still listening. Not just listening, but paying attention.
"Me too," said Kris. "I don't know what I'd do if this happened again. It could've been so much worse."
"I know," said Matt, without looking at either of them.
Everyone knew he could've died. Who knew how close he'd actually come, maybe only the doctors knew that, but it was a very real possibility. And at least Matt knew that, on more than just an intellectual level.
"If I've been a dick," Adam said after a moment, "I'm sorry. I'm here now."
Kris was the one who looked up at that. "Adam, you haven't--" he started, but stopped when Adam waved him off.
"I just wanted to say it," he said, to Matt, not to Kris. "You don't have to say anything."
Actually, there were probably a lot of things Matt needed to say to them, but not right now, not right this second. He'd open his mouth when he was ready to open his mouth, and not a moment sooner.
And he didn't, not for the rest of the time they were in there, even though Kris kept talking to him quietly. At least he made eye contact with Kris, nodding every once in a while. Adam just sat quietly, rested his hand on Matt's leg and felt like it was enough, for now, that Matt let him.
*
Adam was getting damn tired of his phone ringing. He'd already talked to his family, his friends, his assistant, and had his PR team all over his ass telling him he couldn't hang out in a hospital for a week. To which Adam told them the hell he couldn't, and if they needed anything from him that urgently they knew where to reach Julia. It might not have been much of a break, spending his time here, but it was what Adam had chosen and frankly, since he had just come off tour and had nothing scheduled, it was none of their damn business.
But this call wasn't from any of the people he'd already spoken to, and Adam picked up quickly before she gave up on him.
"Allie!" said Adam before he even heard her voice on the other end of the line. "Hey, how are you?"
"Cut the shit," she said. "Tell me about Matt."
Kris was looking up at Adam over the newspaper he'd been reading - or at least pretending to read - and Adam gave him a smile and a nod and an implicit promise to hand over the phone when he was done.
"He's fine."
"Bullshit."
"Well, obviously he's not fine, but he he's awake and talking and breathing, and sometimes you've got to take what you can get," said Adam.
"Fuck it, I'm booking the next flight," said Allison. "I can be there in, like, twelve hours."
"You don't need to do that," said Adam. "We've got this, Allie. You're in Sweden, for God's sake. You don't need to fly over here just to talk to Matt for ten minutes."
"Then tell me how he's really doing," she said, "and don't spare me the tough details."
"He's okay," said Adam. "No brain damage or anything, unless you already think he has some for getting himself into this in the first place." Allison snorted her agreement. "He's feeling like shit, though, and not just because he's got nothing in his system right now. The entire fucking planet ran with this story, so he can't pretend it didn't happen."
"Well, good," said Allison. "Are you sure I shouldn't come there and sit on him or something? Because you'd better believe I can reschedule some of this shit and show up if I have to."
"Really, we've got this," said Adam. "So hey, Kris wants to talk to you."
"Kris is there? With you? Right now?"
"Yeah, he's right here," said Adam. "Where else did you think he'd be?"
"Nowhere, I guess," she said. "Pass me over and let me give him some instructions too, then. If I can't be there, you guys can at least do my job for me."
"Believe me, we are," said Adam. "There was even yelling, and not just from me. Well, as much as you can yell in a hospital."
"If it was me it would've been actual yelling," insisted Allison. "All right, gimme Kris. He's probably making those eyes at you right now."
Kris was, in fact, making some kind of eyes at Adam, though he wasn't quite sure if they were the kind of eyes that Allison was talking about. Either way, he held out the phone in Kris's direction and Kris wasted no time practically jumping out of his seat to grab it out of Adam's hand.
"Hey, Allie?" he said, then there was a long pause as Kris likely got the same speech Adam had. "Yeah, don't worry, we told him. So how's the recording going?"
There was another long pause as Allison launched into it again, and Adam wandered away to study a painting, nothing interesting at all, or particularly soothing either, but it gave him something to focus on so he didn't eavesdrop on the conversation. Not that either of them probably would've really cared if he had.
He was just trying to figure out whether the figures in the little sailboat were male or female when he felt a hand on his back, then on his shoulder, and didn't even start because he knew that touch was Kris's without even having to think about it.
"Apparently we have some more yelling to do," he said, and Adam laughed as he took back the phone. "I don't even know what to say to him anymore. I just don't. I mean, does he understand he could've had a heart attack? Does he understand he could've died?"
"Yeah," said Adam. "Yeah, he understands that. It just doesn't matter as much as it should."
"Maybe I should kidnap him to Arkansas," said Kris. "I'm not too busy lately. I could babysit him in some cabin in the mountains."
"Then I'd have to come too," said Adam, "and as fond as I am of you, Kristopher, there are some things I’m just not willing to do."
"I knew it was bad," said Kris, "and I didn't do anything."
"You didn't know it was this bad."
"No, I did," said Kris. "I knew it was this bad. He called me a couple weeks ago, all jittery and confused. I talked him through it, told him to get medical help but he wouldn't so I just kept him on the phone with me. I knew it was this bad and I didn't make him get help."
Adam was quiet for a moment, and he'd known that Kris was trying to be there for Matt when he could, one of the closest friends Matt still had who weren't all mixed up in his scene, but he hadn't realized that Kris knew as much as he did. Not that it changed anything.
"You gave him good advice," he said. "You told him to get medical help. And knowing you, you even looked it up for him in whatever city he was in so he wouldn't have to do anything."
Kris's silence was a clear yes. "He was in Philadelphia," he said finally. "I could've--"
"You could've what?" said Adam, turning around and kissing Kris on the forehead. "You did more than anyone else."
"I didn't know about the other stuff he was doing," he added a moment later. "I probably should have."
"Yeah, well, what's that about hindsight?" said Adam. "Keep beating yourself up like this and we're going to find bruises under those clothes, Kris. Seriously. Stop now. Right here and right now, just stop now. The only person who was ever going to stop Matt is Matt."
"But--"
"Stop now," said Adam again, holding both of Kris's upper arms, firmly but carefully, too. "This isn't on your shoulders. We've all made some mistakes in our lives, and maybe a lot of things here could've been done differently, but this isn't on you."
"I guess I got a little more wrapped up in it than I thought," he admitted grudgingly a moment later. "I think Matt ran out of people to call."
"That's on Matt too," said Adam. "Come on, let's go down to the cafeteria. This place is driving both of us a little too nuts. If anything happens, we'll still hear about it."
"I should probably call home," said Kris. "Max'll be getting home from preschool any minute now. If he was good today, maybe he can talk to Uncle Adam."
"He can talk to Uncle Adam when he's bad, too," said Adam, and that was all the encouragement he needed to haul Kris out of the stifling waiting room and lead him downstairs.
*
Room service actually made a mean steak au poivre, which was something Adam had learned not to take for granted. "Good, you do still eat," he said as Kris dug into his burger. "I was starting to think I was going to have to go out and find some fast food for you."
"I don't eat that much take-out," said Kris. "Well, not anymore, anyway. It's a lot less tasty when you have someone on repeat in your head reminding you that one day your metabolism won't be able to keep up anymore."
"Yeah, enjoy that hamburger, then," said Adam, smirking at him but certainly not trying to discourage his appetite. Or his own. If there was ever a time to do whatever the hell he wanted, this was it, and the tour'd taken fifteen pounds off him anyway. "We should've gotten you dessert."
"Or we can save that for later," said Kris, licking his fingers clean. I mean...actually, I have no idea what that was supposed to mean. I'm so hungry, though. I feel like I haven't eaten in days."
"I'm not sure you have," said Adam, "other than cafeteria coffee, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't count."
"I don't know, it might count when you actually have to chew it," said Kris. "My mother would probably argue with that. I probably shouldn't suggest it."
"You look like you're feeling better," said Adam as he finished off as much of his dinner as he was planning to eat, which was actually most of it.
"I'm all right," said Kris. "A little relieved, I guess. I've got this new song I want to work on tonight, so I guess that's got my head in a better place."
"Yeah?" said Adam. "Anything you'd be willing to play for me?"
"Well, I have a feeling you're going to be hanging around in here, so I might not have a choice," said Kris, his smile suggesting he didn't mind that. "You've heard me tooling around on my guitar often enough."
"I do have some calls to make, if you want to kick me out for a while," said Adam. "Actually, I've got some calls to make whether you kick me out or not. I've put them off long enough."
"Yeah, I hear that," said Kris. "I've just decided mine can wait till tomorrow. I'm not in a really urgent place right now, you know? I've got my own stuff to deal with today."
"Yeah," agreed Adam, and even though he knew he actually did need to return a couple of calls today, there were a lot more he was still putting off. "It would probably be a bad idea to find a little hole in the wall karaoke bar and just sing some shit tonight, right?"
"Probably," said Kris, "but hey, do what you need to do and deal with the photographs tomorrow."
If only it was that easy anymore. Unless he found a real hole in the wall, Adam would be mobbed.
"I feel like an asshole, saying I wish he'd never gotten famous," he said after a moment, "but if he'd never gotten famous, we wouldn't be here right now. It wouldn't be like this."
"You don't know that," said Kris. "It might've been just like this. It might've been worse."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"We just don't know," said Kris, holding his ground. "Sure, it would've happened differently, but it might've still happened. The only thing we know for sure is that there'd be fewer paparazzi outside, and who knows, they might've still showed up for you."
"They wouldn't have known I was coming," said Adam, not disingenuous enough to deny that he was the big draw. "Apparently no one expected me to come."
"People thought you had better things to do," said Kris. "You have a lot going on."
"I don't, though," said Adam. "Not that's so important that I couldn't be here. Or nothing that should be considered that important, anyway. Is that what people expect of me?"
"It's not a character assessment, Adam," said Kris. "He's not dying, and you've been super busy this year. Sometimes even I don't know how you find enough hours in a day, and I've been there."
"What if it was me?" said Adam. "What if it was me in the hospital?"
"You're not trying to tell me something, are you?" said Kris, looking at him warily. "Because I know you still do stuff sometimes, but--"
"No, no, I'm not," Adam interrupted him. "I don't know what I’m trying to say. Matt, your divorce, my brother's new job...have I lost touch this year? Have I not been here when I was needed?"
"Things are always going to happen in life," said Kris. "You don't put yours on hold to take care of everyone else all the time. I can't speak for anyone else, but you were there when I needed you. The hard part wasn't the divorce, it was the stuff leading up to it."
Adam snorted and gave Kris a weak smile. "So you're telling me I can take my own advice, right?"
"Unless you didn't mean it," said Kris, "but I was just starting to let it sink in, so I hope you did." He polished off the last of his burger and licked off his fingers. "Sometimes I wish we were all just in a some little band that toured the country in an old van and just had a great time. I think I would be okay with that."
"No stress," said Adam, "except trying to make enough to live on." He loved his life, and loved his huge, decadent shows, but he got what Kris was saying. Sometimes he wished for that too. "I'd be lead singer."
"Of course you would," said Kris. "After all, you can't do anything else."
"Oh, snap," said Adam. "I'm getting decent on piano, you know. But keyboard would be Matt's job. You'd be on guitar, of course. We'd need a bass player. Maybe I can just bring mine."
"We'd hang out and play little clubs and sell CDs out of the van and life would be good," said Kris, then sighed. "In another life, right?"
"In another life," agreed Adam, "which we don't have, so I guess we'll just have to fix this one."
--
Part 2