FIC: "free until"
Title: free until
Author: colorofsmoke
Pairing: Adam gen, (Adam/Kris implied)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1500 words
Song: "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" from Space Oddity
Summary: The planning for the masquerade always seems like a blur. No one in the entertainment industry is ever really free. They are never the same.
Note: This is an exploration of words and industry. Features a darker Adam, I suppose. Most likely makes no sense.
The planning for the masquerade always seems like a blur. Endless days and phone calls and "Do you like this fabric with this setting or what about the gold centerpieces?" all for one night.
Only five people work on the event -- Adam keeps it as secret as possible, the invitations going out through the mail in plain envelopes, his initials in the top corner, the monogram with its carefully scripted letters designed expressly for the occasion.
Inside the envelopes had been a white card, textured and heavy with an elegant boarder of inlaid gold. They read merely the time, place, and date and underneath that 'masks required. anything goes.' Adam had meant it, too.
The guest list was 200 strong, all people in the entertainment business, all people who dressed to impress or had voices laced with power or firm hands and telling eyes.
It was a secret, but not. Adam heard about it backstage at more than three shows during the season, listening in on conversations and nodding politely if questions were directed at him. "Were you invited? Did you accept?"
He knew they knew what it was going to be. Lose your date and lose your soul and lose yourself. Just don't lose your mask.
One of the five assistants who had worked tirelessly with him to plan the night, to make sure it would be something that couldn't easily be forgotten, nudged his shoulder. "Are you ready?" he asked, already reaching to open the door for Adam. Adam didn't know which assistant he was; probably Grey, by the tone of his voice, gritty behind a half face masque, white tux and black shoes that Adam could mostly see his face in if he looked down.
"More than ready," Adam said, reaching up to his face, adjusting the night black masque that molded itself to his face, something to hide behind, something to live beyond.
The assistant opened the door with a strong pull of his arm, and the noise of the hall rose up to meet Adam in a humid wave, the full orchestra at opposite end of Adam playing leisurely, a sitar strumming along and drums backing up the strains of classical music for a sound that liquefied itself down the curtains overflowing on the walls, down Adam's bones.
-
The point wasn't to hook up. It wasn't to be trashy or inelegant. The masks weren't meant to hide their owners, but to give them a new identity.
The crowd was dressed up, tuxes and cummerbunds and spit-shined shoes, some with boots laced up to their knees, pants billowing outward from the thighs. Dresses with yards of organza, interwoven strips of fine silk and intricate beading; dangerous necklines and dipping backs, everything that marked one person from the next -- the lines of a jawbone carefully studied by at least one person in the room, a tattoo woven around an elegant ribcage on display for everyone to see.
No one was a mystery here, and Adam could easily recognize some of them -- the elegant arch of one person's spine, the broadness of another's shoulders, the tendency for grandeur in silks and taffeta and the lace on some which left little to the imagination.
This was Hollywood, Adam knew, watching press of bodies and the interactions spread around the room. Hollywood was secrets, and everyone knew those secrets, and while everyone knew them, everyone else still wanted to know more.
Everyone in the room was in a relationship. They were in a relationship with a public eye, an all-consuming relationship full of missteps and over-calculations and even if no one would admit to it, the relationship meant more than anything else.
Here, though -- here was different. All the pressing bodies in the room had something in common, waltzing from one side to the other, pressing too close in shadowed corners or in the set aside rooms over flowing with pillows and draperies -- they were all in the same relationship outside the room. Inside, no one cared.
It had been sort of genius the first time, Adam sitting behind the stage at the Grammys, watching people around him fuss and breath-in-breath-out and shuffle through flashcards of speeches they would never admit to having spent so much time writing. It had been genius because it was simple, and Adam had carefully smudged the eyeliner under his eyes and shuffled the note cards in his hands and felt overwhelmingly jaded and incomprehensibly a part of everyone in the room.
Take all these people, all these happy people in their respective battles to find the happy medium between a time-and-body consuming relationship with media and the public eye and whatever other relationship and commitments they were in and tear that apart, put everyone in a room with structured walls and covered faces and everything else would happen on its own.
-
Adam could write a book on these nights. He could tell all of the world what he's done, seen, heard. The man with a wife and a 50 million-a-year contract with the girl from that show and the guy with the jet, writhing in a corner while everyone knew and watched and understood.
He could write about that man's wife, her over-indulgence on champagne, the girls she took at every gathering, always new, always young -- the way she left their taste on her lips and kept them slick for the rest of the night.
Adam could write about everything, bits and pieces of the four-nights-a-year gatherings he's grown accustomed to throwing, the underground element they've inspired; all the performances where everyone wears their masques outside of the confinement of Adam's nights, now, where they meet up in bunches and pretend to not matter anymore.
He doesn’t, though. There are no rules (the point is, maybe, that there aren’t rules) but he doesn’t. It’s just the system.
-
Tonight is the last night. It’s the big show, but they are found out -- Adam supposes it will come back on him at some point, what he’s done. Right now the thrill of it rushes through his veins just like camera flashes and microphones and sweat-slick bodies pressed against his.
He knows it will be big; everyone, everyone in the room is big, they all have big rolls and big ideas and big bank accounts.
Leaking the gathering (after five years, four times a year) will either be the best or worst idea he’s ever had, besides the creation of the masquerades.
The plan was simple, secret -- it didn’t involve his assistants at all, Adam ordered the envelopes and sent them out. Times, People, everywhere. He invited three photographers and three journalists. The reveal is going to be amazing, go down in history, trashy torrid celebrity history and Adam is going to watch. Not watch and laugh or watch and feel vindicated or justified, just watch.
These people, all of them in the industry -- their relationship with the public eye needs this, the mass expose, the explosion. Adam could feel like a puppet master, here, like this is some big fuck you to the entertainment industry, but he doesn’t. It’s just time.
-
Adam can feel the shoulder brush before he hears the voice. “You’re always up on the stairs.”
He shuts he eyes, leans into the touch resting on the slope of his back. He doesn’t say anything, even though they both know.
“I know what you are doing,” the voice says, “I know who is here. We’re all going to go down.”
Adam turns a little, narrows his eyes and is met with only mildly indifferent ones -- eyes that have come so far, eyes he’d know anywhere, across the room. “Maybe,” Adam says, “but it will be good.”
“Fall down with us all,” the voice says, and his shoulders straighten, chin up, staying small next to Adam but always there, always an overwhelming presence with or without the mask.
Taking the fall with all his guests isn’t part of Adam’s plan. He hasn’t indulged himself in the masquerades for quite some time now, preferring to watch and put together the pieces of everyone’s tangled triangles -- he did enough outside of the gatherings, he made it all possible. He didn’t need to use them, too.
“Come on, Adam.”
Adam looks over the crowd, catches the star-black material of the reporter from People, the fitted suit of the guy from TMZ, his watch held out in front of him, clicking pictures of everything, capturing everything.
The body next to him leans up and curls around him, hand splayed further down his back now, and Adam meets the eyes of the photographer below them.
“Kris,” Adam says, low, a warning, and lets Kris press all the way against him, so he can go down with the crowd, so they can all be free, truly free, together.
Author: colorofsmoke
Pairing: Adam gen, (Adam/Kris implied)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1500 words
Song: "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" from Space Oddity
Summary: The planning for the masquerade always seems like a blur. No one in the entertainment industry is ever really free. They are never the same.
Note: This is an exploration of words and industry. Features a darker Adam, I suppose. Most likely makes no sense.
The planning for the masquerade always seems like a blur. Endless days and phone calls and "Do you like this fabric with this setting or what about the gold centerpieces?" all for one night.
Only five people work on the event -- Adam keeps it as secret as possible, the invitations going out through the mail in plain envelopes, his initials in the top corner, the monogram with its carefully scripted letters designed expressly for the occasion.
Inside the envelopes had been a white card, textured and heavy with an elegant boarder of inlaid gold. They read merely the time, place, and date and underneath that 'masks required. anything goes.' Adam had meant it, too.
The guest list was 200 strong, all people in the entertainment business, all people who dressed to impress or had voices laced with power or firm hands and telling eyes.
It was a secret, but not. Adam heard about it backstage at more than three shows during the season, listening in on conversations and nodding politely if questions were directed at him. "Were you invited? Did you accept?"
He knew they knew what it was going to be. Lose your date and lose your soul and lose yourself. Just don't lose your mask.
One of the five assistants who had worked tirelessly with him to plan the night, to make sure it would be something that couldn't easily be forgotten, nudged his shoulder. "Are you ready?" he asked, already reaching to open the door for Adam. Adam didn't know which assistant he was; probably Grey, by the tone of his voice, gritty behind a half face masque, white tux and black shoes that Adam could mostly see his face in if he looked down.
"More than ready," Adam said, reaching up to his face, adjusting the night black masque that molded itself to his face, something to hide behind, something to live beyond.
The assistant opened the door with a strong pull of his arm, and the noise of the hall rose up to meet Adam in a humid wave, the full orchestra at opposite end of Adam playing leisurely, a sitar strumming along and drums backing up the strains of classical music for a sound that liquefied itself down the curtains overflowing on the walls, down Adam's bones.
-
The point wasn't to hook up. It wasn't to be trashy or inelegant. The masks weren't meant to hide their owners, but to give them a new identity.
The crowd was dressed up, tuxes and cummerbunds and spit-shined shoes, some with boots laced up to their knees, pants billowing outward from the thighs. Dresses with yards of organza, interwoven strips of fine silk and intricate beading; dangerous necklines and dipping backs, everything that marked one person from the next -- the lines of a jawbone carefully studied by at least one person in the room, a tattoo woven around an elegant ribcage on display for everyone to see.
No one was a mystery here, and Adam could easily recognize some of them -- the elegant arch of one person's spine, the broadness of another's shoulders, the tendency for grandeur in silks and taffeta and the lace on some which left little to the imagination.
This was Hollywood, Adam knew, watching press of bodies and the interactions spread around the room. Hollywood was secrets, and everyone knew those secrets, and while everyone knew them, everyone else still wanted to know more.
Everyone in the room was in a relationship. They were in a relationship with a public eye, an all-consuming relationship full of missteps and over-calculations and even if no one would admit to it, the relationship meant more than anything else.
Here, though -- here was different. All the pressing bodies in the room had something in common, waltzing from one side to the other, pressing too close in shadowed corners or in the set aside rooms over flowing with pillows and draperies -- they were all in the same relationship outside the room. Inside, no one cared.
It had been sort of genius the first time, Adam sitting behind the stage at the Grammys, watching people around him fuss and breath-in-breath-out and shuffle through flashcards of speeches they would never admit to having spent so much time writing. It had been genius because it was simple, and Adam had carefully smudged the eyeliner under his eyes and shuffled the note cards in his hands and felt overwhelmingly jaded and incomprehensibly a part of everyone in the room.
Take all these people, all these happy people in their respective battles to find the happy medium between a time-and-body consuming relationship with media and the public eye and whatever other relationship and commitments they were in and tear that apart, put everyone in a room with structured walls and covered faces and everything else would happen on its own.
-
Adam could write a book on these nights. He could tell all of the world what he's done, seen, heard. The man with a wife and a 50 million-a-year contract with the girl from that show and the guy with the jet, writhing in a corner while everyone knew and watched and understood.
He could write about that man's wife, her over-indulgence on champagne, the girls she took at every gathering, always new, always young -- the way she left their taste on her lips and kept them slick for the rest of the night.
Adam could write about everything, bits and pieces of the four-nights-a-year gatherings he's grown accustomed to throwing, the underground element they've inspired; all the performances where everyone wears their masques outside of the confinement of Adam's nights, now, where they meet up in bunches and pretend to not matter anymore.
He doesn’t, though. There are no rules (the point is, maybe, that there aren’t rules) but he doesn’t. It’s just the system.
-
Tonight is the last night. It’s the big show, but they are found out -- Adam supposes it will come back on him at some point, what he’s done. Right now the thrill of it rushes through his veins just like camera flashes and microphones and sweat-slick bodies pressed against his.
He knows it will be big; everyone, everyone in the room is big, they all have big rolls and big ideas and big bank accounts.
Leaking the gathering (after five years, four times a year) will either be the best or worst idea he’s ever had, besides the creation of the masquerades.
The plan was simple, secret -- it didn’t involve his assistants at all, Adam ordered the envelopes and sent them out. Times, People, everywhere. He invited three photographers and three journalists. The reveal is going to be amazing, go down in history, trashy torrid celebrity history and Adam is going to watch. Not watch and laugh or watch and feel vindicated or justified, just watch.
These people, all of them in the industry -- their relationship with the public eye needs this, the mass expose, the explosion. Adam could feel like a puppet master, here, like this is some big fuck you to the entertainment industry, but he doesn’t. It’s just time.
-
Adam can feel the shoulder brush before he hears the voice. “You’re always up on the stairs.”
He shuts he eyes, leans into the touch resting on the slope of his back. He doesn’t say anything, even though they both know.
“I know what you are doing,” the voice says, “I know who is here. We’re all going to go down.”
Adam turns a little, narrows his eyes and is met with only mildly indifferent ones -- eyes that have come so far, eyes he’d know anywhere, across the room. “Maybe,” Adam says, “but it will be good.”
“Fall down with us all,” the voice says, and his shoulders straighten, chin up, staying small next to Adam but always there, always an overwhelming presence with or without the mask.
Taking the fall with all his guests isn’t part of Adam’s plan. He hasn’t indulged himself in the masquerades for quite some time now, preferring to watch and put together the pieces of everyone’s tangled triangles -- he did enough outside of the gatherings, he made it all possible. He didn’t need to use them, too.
“Come on, Adam.”
Adam looks over the crowd, catches the star-black material of the reporter from People, the fitted suit of the guy from TMZ, his watch held out in front of him, clicking pictures of everything, capturing everything.
The body next to him leans up and curls around him, hand splayed further down his back now, and Adam meets the eyes of the photographer below them.
“Kris,” Adam says, low, a warning, and lets Kris press all the way against him, so he can go down with the crowd, so they can all be free, truly free, together.