Title: Catalyst
Author:
shelbecatRating: NC-17
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Disclaimer: Not mine, clearly.
Notes: The one where Adam is too sneaky for his own good, and it pays off big time! (I wrote PORN!!!!) Thanks to
jerakeen for the general squeeing and hand-holding and beta.
Catalyst
Adam Lambert is a relationship-ending catalyst. He doesn’t create problems, he escalates them. He can’t help it. Somehow making ‘it’ his business just happens without his even intending it to, and then inevitably he’s the crying shoulder while the other party is throwing metaphorical darts at him. Although there was the one time that they were actual darts, but Adam is also surprisingly quick on his feet. He escaped with only a flesh wound.
It’s not exactly something he’s proud of, but it is an accomplishment nonetheless. Five good friends in relationships. Five good friends who confessed their problems to him. Five good friends who were left relationshipless and dependant on him for comfort. Being the ‘good friend’ is exhausting.
When he meets Kris, he doesn’t think this will be his sixth good friend. He would like for Kris to be a friend, but he doesn’t want to watch a marriage end. And Kris’s relationship seems solid-pristine and drama-free and all those things that Adam has never had in a relationship. He supposes maybe that’s the key-never bringing drama into it in the first place. He’ll have to try giving out that advice next time. Maybe he can be the bottleneck and push things in the other direction for a change.
But then Kris decides to be all trusting and assume Adam isn’t a dirty little sneak who would eavesdrop on his conversations. That’s another problem Adam has-he’s too curious for his own good.
“Why you gotta be so fucking nosey?” Neil would say to him when they were teenagers.
“I’m not nosey, I’m curious.”
“You know where curiosity will get you?” his younger brother would ask.
“Everywhere,” Adam would taunt. And he believed it.
And as a result Adam spends most nights lying on his bed with one ear bud in for show, no music playing on his iPod, listening to Kris fight with Katy on the phone. It’s addictive and sickening and Adam can’t stop listening. Kris has perfected the art of quiet anger. He sits still as a statue, back turned to Adam, and never, ever raises his voice above normal room volume. But his words-his words drip with hurt and betrayal and ‘how-could-you’s, and for Adam, it’s like watching an exhibit at the zoo.
He’s learning an awful lot about pristine, drama-free relationships from Kris Allen. Like the fact that they do not exist at all.
/-/
Adam Lambert cannot keep his mouth shut. Maybe that’s why he became a relationship-ending catalyst in the first place, but so far he hasn’t learned his lesson. He just can’t help it. He sees someone hurting and he wants to help. It’s late one night the week before the Top 3 performances and they’ve spent the entire day going over song choices. They have to finalize their song selection and it has to be a good one. It has to showcase every aspect of their voices and abilities and Adam knew he’d be doing something hard rock and scream-worthy weeks ago. Kris, however, is mired in emo songs that do nothing for his voice, but completely match his mood.
Adam can’t stand by and watch him go home.
“Choose something big. Go for it. You can’t fail with something big. They’ll like you for your balls.”
Kris raises his eyebrows at Adam from across the room.
“Well, they won’t actually like your balls balls, but you know what I mean.” Adam stands up from his bed and stretches. “No Jason Mraz, David Gray emo-bullshit songs that anyone can do…that Gokey can do. You’ve got to be better than that.”
Kris does not look at all convinced.
“You are better than that.” Adam sits down on the edge of Kris’s bed and looks at the sheet music spread out before him. “Chasing Cars? Are you trying to go home?”
“No…no…I’m not…of course I’m not.” Kris moves back and leans against his pillows, fiddling with his hands in his lap. “Of course not.”
Adam narrows his eyes at him. Another thing Adam Lambert is supremely good at-he can spot a bullshitter a mile away.
“You dirty fucker. You want to leave. You are trying to leave this week! I don’t fucking believe it!”
“I’m not!”
Adam stands up, throwing his hands up in the air and whirling around. “You are. You so fucking are. Fucking cunt.”
Kris stops still, mouth open, then giggles. “Did you just call me a cunt?”
Adam folds his arms on his chest. “I did. You object?”
Kris rolls over into full laughter, tossing his head back against the pillows and curling to the side with his arms clasped across his stomach.
He tries not to smile, Adam does not find Kris tossing the competition particularly funny, but he has to admit Kris’s laughter is contagious. He sits back down on the bed and reaches out a hand to grip Kris’s ankle. He waits until Kris stops shaking, then keeps waiting until the moment becomes awkward and Kris tries to shift his leg away. Adam doesn’t let go. He can’t help himself-he knows he’s just jumped over the relationship-line (again) but he won’t see his friend lose this competition because of a failed relationship. If Adam is going to win, he wants it to be fair and square-and with Kris standing next to him in the finale.
Finally Kris meets Adam’s eyes and swallows thickly. “She broke up with me.” Another laugh escapes, this time followed by a hiccup masking a sob. “Can you break up if you’re married? Maybe she left me. Does that sound better?”
Kris’s face looks like it’s been mashed into something beyond recognition. His eyes are squeezed tight together and he’s fighting not to cry, Adam knows it. He really doesn’t want to see Kris cry, but goddamn it, his wife fucking left him. If there’s a better reason to cry right now, Adam doesn’t know what it is.
“Jesus Christ,” Adam breathes out. Then he slides the mess of papers to the side of the bed and crawls up until he’s lying down alongside Kris. Kris turns away, shielding his face from Adam, but Adam doesn’t mind-it’s always easier to hug from behind.
“Shh,” Adam whispers against Kris’s shoulder, and rubs a hand along Kris’s arm again and again. One thing being a relationship-ending catalyst has taught him is exactly how to comfort someone given their particular reaction to the break-up. Some people you get drunk off their feet, some you talk to until your voices give out and you fall asleep where you sit, others just need quiet time to mourn and all you can do is be there with them-Kris is the quiet type.
They stay there until Kris’s breathing evens out and Adam is pretty sure he’s drifted off to sleep. Adam is so comfortable, he could honestly just fall asleep right here, but his left arm fell asleep five minutes ago and now pins and needles are running up into his shoulder. He rolls onto his back gently, careful not to wake Kris.
“Where are you going?”
“I thought you were asleep. Fuck.” Adam lifts the dead weight of his arm and curses as the blood rushes back in, bringing prickly darts of pain right along with it.
“Here,” Kris says, rolling over and reaching up to massage Adam’s tricep. Adam’s arm stings where Kris’s fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s an awakening, a rebirth. Adam’s eyes are trained on Kris’s face and Kris’s lips are pursed in concentration. Adam wants to kiss the expression right off his face.
“Did you guess something was wrong?”
Adam doesn’t even realize the question was for him until Kris stares at him, waiting for an answer.
“What? Oh…no, no way. You guys were solid.”
Kris does not look like he believes him. “You didn’t seem surprised.”
Shit. Now he has to admit it. “Well, you kind of fight a lot. Not that I was eavesdropping!” Adam raises his hands in defense. God damn, his arm still stings. And Kris is looking at him with sad eyes and Adam hates sad eyes…especially on Kris.
“Alright, fine. I overheard your conversations. But it’s not like you were very secretive about it. You could have gone into the bathroom.”
Kris raises his eyebrows, his hands now kneading Adam’s shoulder.
“Or I could have gone into the bathroom, I guess,” Adam mutters. “Or turned on my music.”
Kris laughs. Adam breathes a sigh of relief. Kris doesn’t seem to mind that Adam was in the know, and everyone is going to know now anyway, he supposes. He was just first.
“So…did you overhear a lot of conversations?” Kris asks.
Adam shrugs. It’s not like he was keeping a count. “I don’t know. I wasn’t trying to hear everything, just, when you seemed like you were really upset, I figured you’d want to talk about it and I listened sometimes to see if maybe I could help. Stupid I know.”
“No, not stupid. Nice.” Kris smiles and continues massaging Adam’s arm.
The feeling has almost completely returned but Kris’s fingers feel so nice Adam can’t bring himself to tell Kris to stop.
“So you heard the reason why we split up then.”
Adam furrows his brow. Actually, he hadn’t. It just seemed like a lot of ‘Arkansas is not for me’ and ‘Why can’t you see this is what I want?’ and he had just assumed Katy didn’t want Kris competing in Idol anymore.
“The show?” he guesses.
Kris shakes his head. “Another man.”
“What? Katy?” Adam doesn’t believe it. No way that pure little blonde thing went out and got herself a new man while Kris was in the mansion working his ass off to try and win this competition. What a bitch.
But Kris is still shaking his head, and his hands have moved up from Adam’s arm to his chest and something breaks free from way down inside Adam’s stomach. Something that’s been growing since the day he first met Kris Allen. Something he swore he would keep hidden away and never let see the light of day. A feeling he swore he’d keep secret.
Kris leans closer, his lips falling perilously close to Adam’s. His eyes search Adam’s face and Adam hopes he’s giving off his ‘oh fuck yes’ vibe, because he wants this. He’s wanted this forever.
“I couldn’t help it,” Kris breathes. “You were just there.” And then he’s kissing Adam and it’s a miracle, Adam is returned to full and complete health and has no problem at all using both of his arms to flip Kris over onto his back.
He rises up above him, sucking in much needed air and rakes his eyes over Kris’s face. He’s got to memorize this moment. He’s got to paint a mental picture of every detail because he doesn’t think it will ever get any better than this. If he lives to be a hundred, he’ll never be shocked into such sweet bliss as this.
Slowly, he reaches to unbutton Kris’s shirt, smiling when Kris only lifts his hands to tug Adam’s from his waistband. He explores every inch of Kris’s chest, smooth skin with only a few hairs. His tongue paints a path from nipple to nipple, dipping and dripping down his chest to the patch of hair leading beyond his jeans. He raises his eyes for silent approval, stretching up for another kiss when Kris nods without hesitation.
Kris’s cock springs free like it’s been waiting for Adam it’s whole life. Adam would laugh, but he’s so fucking nervous right now. He’s had good sex before, hell, he’s had fucking awesome sex before, but he’s never had such important sex before. He is Kris’s first. He could maybe be Kris’s only. And he is too nervous to do it right.
He licks the tip of Kris’s cock slowly, running his tongue down the shaft as Kris emits a low groan from somewhere way above. Adam is just focused on giving the best damn blow job he’s ever given in his life. He wraps his lips around Kris’s cock and pulses up, down, up, down until Kris is writhing in time with him. His hand jerks the base of Kris’s dick, earning bucking hips and rigid hands ripping into the sheets and then Kris explodes, all over his own chest and Adam’s hand. Adam flips his hair out of his eyes, staring along Kris’s naked chest to find a face lost in ecstasy. It’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.
“Come here,” Kris gasps, still falling back to earth. He grips Adam’s shoulders as Adam crawls along him, pulling him up and kissing him full on the lips.
Adam can’t breathe past the pounding in his chest and then Kris is moving down, kicking free of his own pants and fumbling with Adam’s button at the same time. Adam wants to help, feels like he should show Kris what to do, but Kris swats his hands away. Either Katy gives really great blow jobs, and Kris has been taking notes for years, or he’s a really fast student. Because Adam loses all rational thought the moment Kris’s lips brush down across his dick.
It’s so tender and gentle and not as rough as he normally likes it, but it shouldn’t be rough this time. It’s like the evolution of something he didn’t know existed-an awareness that something could be as good as this, but never knowing it would actually come true. Adam loses it when Kris takes him fully in his mouth, and Kris catches a mouthful when he doesn’t get free fast enough.
“Oh, come here, come here,” Adam gushes, dragging Kris back up as come drips down his chin. But Kris doesn’t seem to mind at all, and when Adam presses their mouths together, he forgets that there is a world outside of this tiny universe where they exist together. Kris makes him forget.
/-/
Adam wakes up with Kris pressed to his chest, trepidation rushing in to claim the spot where exhilaration lay last night. But then Kris opens his eyes, grins, and kisses him before peeling away to take a shower.
Adam can’t believe his good fortune. He told Neil curiosity would get him everywhere, he can’t fucking wait to call him and gloat. But first, he has to make sure Kris stays in this mansion as long as possible. He flips through the sheet music that had fallen, forgotten, to the floor last night. There was one song that Kris was playing around with the week before, and Adam had thought at the time that it was a bit bold for him. But now he knows Kris Allen is much bolder than Adam ever gave him credit for. He can totally pull it off.
When Kris walks out of the bathroom, Adam hands him the chords to Heartless. “Do it,” he says, and snags a kiss before disappearing into the bathroom himself.
By the time he’s finished, Kris is in the groove and Adam knows they’re good.
/fin/